CB slang is the distinctive anti-language, argot, or cant which developed among users of Citizens Band radio (CB), especially truck drivers in the United States during the 1970s and early 1980s.
The slang itself is not only cyclical, but also geographical. Through time, certain terms are added or dropped as attitudes towards it changed. For example, in the early days of the CB radio, the term "Good buddy" was widely used.[1]
Nicknames or call signs given or adopted by CB radio users are known as "handles".[1] [2] Many truck drivers will call each other "Hand,"[3] or by the name of the company for which they drive.
CB and its distinctive language started in the United States but was then exported to other countries including Mexico, Germany, and Canada.
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| Baby bear | A rookie police officer. |
| Bear | A police officer. (See "Smokey" below) |
| Bear bite/Invitation | A speeding ticket. |
| Bear cave/Bear's den | A police station. |
| Bear in the air | A police officer in some form of aircraft (see "Eye in the sky"). |
| Bear rolling discos | A speeding police car with its lights flashing. |
| Bear trap | Radar or speed trap. |
| Bear with ears | A police officer monitoring the CB airwaves. |
| Blue light special | A police vehicle with its blue strobe lights flashing (from the popular Kmart sale gimmick). |
| Checkpoint Charlie | Police checkpoint placed to look for intoxicated drivers, drivers with invalid licenses, etc. (alludes to the former border crossing between East and West Berlin). |
| Chicken coop/Chicken house | A scale house (truck scale), or the weigh station where they are found. |
| Cop-ulating | A collaborative task force of multiple agencies and/or jurisdictions conducting a checkpoint, speed enforcement or other targeted “sting” operation. |
| County mountie | A county sheriff or deputy. |
| DOT | Department of Transportation enforcement vehicle. |
| Eaten by a bear | A truck driver caught by a police officer for speeding or another safety infraction. |
| Evel Knievel | Police officer on a motorcycle (refers to the popular motorcycle stuntman). |
| Eye in the sky | Police aircraft, airplane or helicopter. |
| Flying doughnut | A police helicopter. |
| Fox in the hen house/Smokey in a plain wrapper | An unmarked police vehicle. |
| Full-grown bear | A state police trooper. |
| Gumball machine/Bubble gum machine | Police vehicle, especially one with the older-style, dome-shaped red rotating/strobe light commonly mounted on the roof of police cars, which resembles a traditional "penny" gumball machine. |
| Hit/Hitting the jackpot | A motorist or trucker pulled over by law enforcement. Refers to the siren lights on top of a police cruiser, resembling the bright lights on a casino slot machine. |
| Honey bear | A more endearing term for a female police officer. |
| Kojak with a Kodak | A police officer running Radar. |
| Local yokel | A local city police officer. |
| Mama bear | A less derogatory term for a female police officer. |
| Miss Piggy | A female police officer (refers to the Muppet character, derived from the pejorative term "pig" for police officers). |
| Mountie mountie | A member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. |
| Papa bear | A male police officer or police supervisor such as Sergeant or higher rank. |
| Polar bear | A white unmarked police vehicle. |
| Smokey | A police officer (refers to Smokey Bear, known for wearing a campaign hat very similar to that included in many highway patrol uniforms in the United States; origin of Smokey and the Bandit movie title). |
| Smokey with a customer | A driver getting busted by a police officer and being issued a ticket. |
| Starsky and Hutch | Police officers (refers to the 1970s American action television series Starsky & Hutch). |
| Sunoco special | A New York state trooper. Named for the blue-and-yellow vehicle color scheme which resembled Sunoco gas stations. |
| Super trooper | State police trooper. |
| Taco stand | Border patrol stations on the Mexico–United States border. |
| Wall-to-wall bears | A large number of police vehicles, especially when on a chase. |
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| 18/18 wheeler | A truck with a total of 18 tire/wheels. It can also be used for any truck usually with a fifth-wheel hitch and a semi-trailer even if the vehicle doesn't have dual wheels, or tandem axles. |
| Aircraft carrier | Tractor/trailer carrying a disassembled aircraft, helicopter or a small plane. |
| Angry kangaroo | A truck with one (or both) of its headlights out. |
| Big truck | Generally, a truck able to pull a semi-trailer, usually with the trailer and not a bob-tail. It can mean any vehicle Class 7 or heavier. |
| Blinkin winkin/Kiddie car | School bus. |
| Bulldog | A Mack road tractor, noted for its trademark bulldog hood ornament (origin in World War I when British soldiers called the Mack AC "The Bulldog", giving the name and trademark hood ornament to Mack). |
| Bullfrog | An ABF truck. |
| Bull hauler | A livestock hauler that is empty (for a loaded one see Go Go Girls). |
| Bobtail rig/Bobtail | Road tractor driving without a trailer. |
| Buster Brown | UPS truck. |
| Cab-over | A truck where the cab sits directly over the engine. Much less common in North America since the overall length law changed in 1976. |
| Cash box | A toll booth. |
| Chicken truck | A dressed up and fancy truck. Usually means extra chrome, wide front bumper, extra light, etc. Can also mean a fast truck. Does not mean a truck hauling chickens. |
| Coal bucket | Truck with a trailer for hauling coal, especially an end-dump trailer. |
| Container | An intermodal shipping container. Refers to a cargo container that goes overseas, get loaded onto a train, or get placed on a truck chassis. |
| Corn flake | A Consolidated Freightways truck. |
| Cornbinder/Thirteen letter shit spreader | A Navistar International or International Harvester truck. |
| Covered wagon | A trailer with a tarp. |
| Doubles | Refers to a double set of trailers. |
| Draggin' wagon/A wrecker | A tow truck. |
| Dry van | A trailer without a refrigeration unit or insulation. |
| Drop and hook | The process of dropping off a trailer and picking up a replacement trailer at a destination. |
| Dung beetle | A Volkswagen Beetle with a male driver. |
| Fender bender | An accident (now widely used among the general public). |
| Freightshaker | A Freightliner truck. |
| Four wheeler | Any vehicle with only four wheels. Most often used for personal cars/vans/SUVs. |
| Go-go girls (on the dance floor) | A livestock truck, preferably hauling pigs or cows. |
| Green machine | A military vehicle. |
| Hood | A conventional road tractor, with the engine in front of the cab. |
| Jimmy | A GMC road tractor. |
| Juice box | A tanker hauling perishable liquids preferably juice concentrate to a processing plant. |
| K-Whopper | A Kenworth road tractor. |
| Louisville | A Ford L-Series truck. |
| Meat wagon | An ambulance. |
| Milk bottle | A milk tanker. |
| Boiler/Pete/Petercar | A Peterbilt road tractor. |
| Pigtails | The cables that supply air and power to a trailer. |
| Piggy back | A truck towing another truck. |
| Piggy bank | An armored car. |
| Portable barn | A livestock truck. |
| Portable parking lot/Rolling parking lot | A tractor/trailer loaded with new or used cars, a car carrier trailer. |
| Pregnant roller skate | A Volkswagen Beetle. |
| Pumpkin/Pumpkin roller | A Schneider National tractor/trailer. |
| Reefer | A refrigerated trailer or flatbed trailer hauling a refrigerated container. |
| Rolling refinery | A tanker truck, typically carrying fuel. |
| Salt shaker | A highway department truck for spreading ice melting chemicals on the road, traditionally salt. |
| Scanny | A Scania AB truck. There are around 500 in the United States. It is very rare, so it is used only in social media (truck pages in Facebook, YouTube, etc.). |
| Skateboard | A straight, flatbed trailer. |
| Star car/Big W | A Western Star road tractor. |
| Super chickens | A YRC tractor/trailer. |
| Thermos bottle | A road tractor with a chemical trailer. |
| Turkey hearse | A truck with a load of turkeys headed for slaughter. |
| Wiggle wagon | A road tractor with more than one trailer. |
| Yard dog, yard goat, yard horse or mule | A terminal tractor used to move trailers in a shipping/freight yard. |
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| Beantown | Boston, Massachusetts (now widely used among the general public). |
| Beer Town | Milwaukee, Wisconsin. |
| Berta | Alberta. |
| Big Apple | New York, New York (now widely used among the general public). |
| Bingo or Bingotown | Binghamton, New York. |
| Big D / Emerald City | Dallas, Texas (now widely used among the general public in North Texas). |
| The Bubbly | Champaign, Illinois. |
| Chocolate Town | Hershey, Pennsylvania (reference to Hershey's Chocolate's; now widely used among the general public) |
| Choo Choo Town/Tow City/ Chatty | Chattanooga, Tennessee (after the song “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”) (in reference to Miller Industries and being the birthplace of the tow truck). |
| Corn patch | The Midwest. |
| Cow Town | Fort Worth, Texas, or Calgary, Alberta. |
| Crashville | Nashville, Tennessee. |
| Derby City/Derby Town | Louisville, Kentucky. |
| The Dime | Interstate 10 |
| Disney Town | Anaheim, California. |
| Flagtown | Flagstaff, Arizona. |
| Flower City | Rochester, New York. |
| Flying Hook | Flying J truckstop chain. |
| Fort God | Memphis, Tennessee. |
| Gateway/Arch Town/The Big Arch | St. Louis, Missouri. |
| Ghost Town | Casper, Wyoming. |
| Guitar Town | Nashville, Tennessee. |
| Gunspoint | Greenspoint (an area of Houston, Texas). |
| Hippie Haven / Bat City / Waterloo | Austin, Texas. |
| Hog Town | Toronto, Ontario. |
| Hotlanta | Atlanta, Georgia (now widely used among the general public). |
| Space City/H-Town/Astrodome/The Oil Patch | |
| Indy 500/Indy 5 | Indianapolis, Indiana (reference to Indianapolis Motor Speedway home of the Indy 500). |
| Idiot Island | California. |
| The Ike Highway | Interstate 80 in California, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming; Interstate 25 from Cheyenne to Denver; and Interstate 70 from Denver to Baltimore as shown on signs saying Dwight D. Eisenhower Highway. |
| Job Town | Clinton, New Jersey. |
| Little Cuba | Miami, Florida. |
| Lost Wages/Sin City/Dice Town/Gambling Town | Las Vegas, Nevada. |
| Mardi Gras/Crescent City | New Orleans, Louisiana. |
| Mickey Mouse | Orlando, Florida (a reference to Walt Disney World resort). |
| Mile High | Denver, Colorado (now widely used among the general public as "The Mile High City"). |
| Monkey Town | Montgomery, Alabama ('Monkey' being diminutive form of 'Montgomery'). |
| Motor City | Detroit, Michigan (now widely used among the general public). |
| Nickel Road | Interstate 5. |
| The Pokey | Pocatello, Idaho. |
| Queen City | Charlotte, North Carolina, Cincinnati, Ohio, or Buffalo, New York. |
| Quarterback | Interstate 25. |
| Red Stick | Baton Rouge, Louisiana. |
| Rhymes with Fun | Regina, Saskatchewan. |
| Ripoff Griffin's | Rip Griffin's, a well known truck stop outside Dallas. |
| Rock City | Little Rock, Arkansas. |
| Salty | Salt Lake City, Utah (a reference to the Great Salt Lake) |
| Shakey City or Shakeytown | California or Los Angeles specifically (a reference to the frequency and severity of earthquakes). |
| Silly Circle | The Capital Beltway, a beltway around Washington, D.C., running through Virginia and Maryland. |
| Stack of Bricks | A house or home ("I'm heading back to my stack of bricks"). |
| Steam Town | Scranton, Pennsylvania. |
| Steel City | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (now widely used among the general public). |
| The Sticker Patch | Phoenix, Arizona (a reference to the cacti in the area). |
| Spud Town | Boise, Idaho. |
| T Town | Texarkana, Texas/Arkansas or Tulsa, Oklahoma. |
| Tonto | Toronto, Ontario. |
| Taco Town / Alamo City | San Antonio, Texas. |
| UFO Central | Roswell, New Mexico, Nevada State Route 375, and Area 51 or any area where UFOs have supposedly been sighted. |
| Windy City | Chicago, Illinois (now widely used among the general public). |
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| 4-10 | A reversal of the ten code "10-4," when asking if someone agrees with something said or if one's transmission was received. ("That was a nasty wreck. Four-ten?") |
| 5 by 5 | Indicates that another CB user can be heard clearly (see "Wall to wall and treetop tall"). |
| 10-4 | Acknowledged; can also be used to denote or emphasize an agreement ("That's a big 10-4."). |
| 10-6 | Busy; stand by.[4] |
| 10-7 | Signing off. |
| 10-8 | En route. ("I'm 10-8 to your location.") |
| 10-9 | Last transmission not received; repeat your last transmission. |
| 10-10 | CB user will cease broadcasting but will continue to listen. ("I'm 10-10 on the side.") |
| 10-20 | Denotes location, as in identifying one's location ("My 20 is on Main Street and First"), asking the receiver what their current location or immediate destination is ("What's your 20?"), or inquiring about the location of a third person ("OK, people, I need a 20 on Little Timmy and fast"). |
| 10-32 | Radio check or test. |
| 10-33 | Emergency traffic, clear the channel. CB code for Mayday for trucks and police cars. |
| 3s and 8s | Well wishes to a fellow driver. Borrowed from amateur radio telegraphy codes "73" (best regards) and "88" (hugs and kisses). |
| 10-36 | The correct time ("Can I get a 10-36?"). |
| 10-41 | Driver is signing on or changed the channel on their radio. |
| 10-42 | An accident on the road. |
| 10 in the wind | Listening to the CB while driving (also known as "10-10 in the wind"). |
| 10-70 | A fire. |
| 10-77/10-double-7 | No or negative, often said with intensity. |
| 10-100 | Restroom break. |
| 10-200 | Police needed at ________. (In the trucking-themed movie Smokey and the Bandit, a character jokingly plays off this usage, saying that 10-100 is better than 10-200, meaning that 10-100 was peeing and 10-200 was doing a #2). |
| 20 | Abbreviation of "10-20." |
| Affirmative | Yes. |
| Alabama chrome | Duct tape. |
| Alligator station | A user who talks constantly and seldom listens (comic reference to an alligator - all mouth and no ears). Someone who will not shut up. Frequently refers to a powerful local base station transmitting to mobile CBers, often on channel 19. ("Bucket mouth"/"Linear lungs," but a base station rather than a mobile. Sometimes, though rarely, used to refer to a very loud mobile user. |
| Aye-firmative | Variant of "Affirmative." |
| Back Door | The rearmost vehicle driver in a group that watches for police officers approaching from behind and gives warning to the others in the group to slow down when speeding (see also "Front Door" and "Rocking Chair"). |
| Back it down | Reduce driving speed to the speed limit. |
| Back row/Party row | An area of a truck stop, generally located in the back of the property, where prostitutes congregate. |
| Bambi | Wildlife on the road, primarily deer (from Bambi). |
| Bear bait | An erratic or speeding driver.[5] |
| Bird-dog | Radar detector. |
| Bird-dog is barking | Indication that Radar has been detected ("My bird-dog is barking"). |
| Billy-Bunn | Funny driver |
| Black Gold/Texas Tea | Oil or a tanker hauling Crude Oil to the refinery. (From The Beverly Hillbillies) |
| Bob-tail | Semi-truck traveling without a trailer. |
| Boop Boop/Cluck Cluck Chicken Truck | Greetings exchanged between chicken haulers. |
| Break/Breaker | Informing other CB users that you would like to start a transmission on a channel. May be followed by either the channel number, indicating that anyone may acknowledge (e.g., "Breaker One-niner" refers to channel 19, the most widely used among truck drivers), or by a specific "handle", which is requesting a particular individual to respond. |
| Bucket mouth/Linear lungs | Someone swearing on CB/Someone who will not shut up. Similar to "Alligator Station", but usually refers to a mobile user rather than a base station. |
| CB Rambo | A radio user who brags about his fighting prowess. |
| Chicken coop/Port of entry/The Scales/Scale house | A weigh station. |
| Chicken lights | The lights on a chicken truck, or marker lights in excess of what the law requires. |
| Choke and puke | A truck stop restaurant, especially one known for its low quality food. |
| Comedian | The median or central reservation of a highway. As in, "A bear taking pictures from the comedian." |
| Copy that/Copy | Acknowledgement, meaning "I heard you" or "I understand." |
| Cotton choppers | Term for a group of people seen as bothersome or annoying. Occasionally used in a friendly fashion as a rough term of endearment to refer to others. Sometimes used to refer to other people in general, especially those who do not use CB radio. |
| Cotton-pickin' | Substitution for foul language (now widely used among the general public). |
| Crotch rocket | A very fast motorcycle (now widely used among the general public). |
| Do a flip | Turn around and go the opposite direction. As in, "That county mountie did a flip when the bear bait went by in the hammer lane." |
| Double-nickels | A 55 mph speed zone. |
| Drain the dragon/The double D | Comic reference for a restroom call. |
| Driver | Term for someone who drives a truck, not to refer to anyone in other vehicles. |
| Eat 'em up | A restaurant. |
| Feeding the bears | Speeding or driving recklessly. |
| Fifty-Dollar Lane | The inside lane (left most lane) in either direction of an eight-lane highway. |
| Fighter pilot | An erratic driver who changes lanes often. |
| Fingerprint | The driver has to load, or more commonly, unload the trailer. That is, to put his fingerprints on all the boxes. |
| Flip-flop | Used by truckers to refer to the return trip or traveling back the other way, especially when referring to going home on an outbound run. |
| Four/foe | Variant of "10-4", dropping the 10. (e.g. "Yeah, four", "Foe", or "Yeah, foe"). |
| Flag in five-mile wind | A 45 mph speed zone. |
| Flying the coop | Going though a weigh station without stopping and triggering a port runner. This type of activity is illegal and reckless driving and can result in an arrest. |
| Fox hunt | A direction finding activity using cars and vans fitted with CB radios. The objective of this activity is to use a signal strength meter to triangulate or otherwise locate a hidden transmitter, or "fox." |
| Front Door | The leading vehicle driver in a group that watches for police officers approaching from the front or officers watching oncoming traffic from the side of the road. This driver gives warning to the others in the group to slow down when speeding. See also "Back Door" and "Rocking Chair." |
| Gator, or Alligator | A large piece of tire on the road. From a distance it can resemble an alligator sunning on the road. |
| Asking if a specific person or if anyone is listening to a given channel.[6] |
| Green stamp(s) | Cash money (refers to S&H Green Stamps). When used in the singular form, can also refer to a toll road, such as the New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania Turnpikes which are all denoted by green route markers. Occasionally refers to a speeding ticket. |
| Go-go juice | Fuel ("I need to get some go-go juice"). |
| Groceries | Goods being hauled. |
| Good buddy | In the 1970s, this was the stereotypical term for a friend or acquaintance on the CB airwaves.[7] [8] |
| Good numbers | Well wishes to a fellow driver. |
| Hand | Person, especially a working person like a hired hand. Sometimes used to distinguish a between a driver and one who isn't ("I talked to a hand who wants to become a driver"). |
| Handle | The nickname a CB user uses in CB transmissions. Other CB users will refer to the user by this nickname. To say "What's your handle?" is to ask another user for their CB nickname. |
| Hammer | The gas pedal or accelerator. |
| Hammer down | Driving at high speed - or trying to with the gas pedal fully depressed. ("He's got the hammer down!", "I put the hammer down, but this is as fast as it goes."; now used among the general public). |
| Hammer lane | The passing lane or the "fast lane". (E.g., "Don't let smokey see you camping out in the hammer lane, buddy"). |
| Hot mic | A CB user who monopolizes a radio channel by talking in excess. |
| Hundred-mile coffee | Very strong coffee. |
| Jabber/Jabbering idiot/Babble/Babbling idiot | A CB user transmitting in a foreign language. |
| Keep the left door closed | Make time by not stopping. |
| Kicker/Footwarmer | A linear amplifier used to illegally increase CB transmit power. A favorite tool of "Alligator Stations," "Bucket Mouths" and "Linear Lungs." Frowned upon by most users. |
| Lot lizard | A prostitute in a rest area or the parking area of a truck stop. |
| Mud Duck | A cb user that has a weak signal and they keep trying to talk despite the fact that no one can understand them. |
| Nap Trap | A rest area. |
| Negatory | No, negative (often emphatic, like "Hell no"; see "10-77/10-double-7"). |
| On one's donkey | Following another vehicle too close; tailgating ("You have a sports car 'on your donkey'"). |
| Outdoor TV | A drive-in theatre. |
| Over one's shoulder / Over one's donkey | The road behind that one has just traveled ("How's it look over your shoulder / over your donkey?"). |
| Peanut butter in one's ears | Oblivious to or ignoring CB transmission. |
| Pickle park | A rest area, especially one with a reputation for prostitution. Can also be used to describe large grassy medians on highways, e.g. "There's a smokey doing flip flops around the pickle park." |
| Reading the mail | Operator is listening but not actively transmitting. |
| Rocking Chair | The vehicle(s) in a group positioned between the front door and back door drivers. Called the rocking chair because drivers in that position of the group can relax while speeding because the front door and back door drivers are watching for the police (See "Front Door" and "Back Door"). |
| Rubbernecking/ Rubbernecks/ Rubberneckers | Looking at something on the side of the road, causing a backup. / People slowing down to look at something, particularly an accident. |
| Sandbagging | Listening to CB conversation without participating, despite having the capability of speaking. This is not the same as listening in using a simple receiver, as the person sandbagging can transmit using the two-way radio, but chooses not to.[9] [10] It is for the purpose of monitoring CB users for entertainment or for gathering information about the actions of a particular user. Often, CB users "sandbag" to listen to others' responses to their previous input to a conversation, sometimes referred to as "reading the mail."[11] |
| Seat cover | An attractive woman in a vehicle, especially one who is scantily-clad or wearing sexy clothing. |
| Semi-pro | Pickup truck drivers congregating with truckers. |
| Thick stuff | Bad weather, preferably fog caused by rain or heavy snow. |
| Three Sisters | Three large hills on I-80E between Salt Lake City, Utah and Fort Bridger, Wyoming (now used by the general public). May be related to the “Three Sisters” rogue wave on Lake Superior. |
| Triple Nickel | CB users sometimes migrate to "out of band" channels/frequencies, most famously 27.555 MHz, referred to as "Triple Nickel." 27.555 MHz is well above the 40 channel CB standard allowing for a more private conversation and enhanced radio communications. Modified equipment is usually required to access this frequency. |
| Turn and burn | To return from a destination back to the original starting point of a trip, especially in a hurry and/or non-stop so as not to lose time. |
| Turtle race | Two trucks side by side, one trying to pass the other, but both have speed governors. |
| Suicide jockey | A driver who is hauling dangerous goods, such as explosives. |
| Wall Paper | A traffic citation/ticket (especially a speeding ticket). |
| Wall to wall and treetop tall | An exceptionally clear and strong signal/transmission. |
| Watering hole | A truck stop. |
| Yardstick | A mile marker or mile post. |