Grass

[Dusky]

Where does the term "grass", meaning an informant or to inform on someone, originate?

[Quizmonster]

It's apparently an abbreviation of 'grasshoppers', rhyming slang for 'shoppers'...ie people who go to the "cop-shop" (police station) to talk or betray others.

[THECORBYLOON]

The explanation I've seen gives it as "Grass in the park" for "nark" which is an informer.

[Quizmonster]

Yet another suggestion is that it is an abbreviation of grass-snake...a 'snake in the grass' being another name for someone untrustworthy who might betray you.

There is also a suggestion that the key word in my earlier response, 'grasshopper' might apply because it rhymes with 'copper'...policeman. A grass might, therefore be someone who "hops to the cops"!

[undercovers]

i thought a nark was a narcotics officer

[Quizmonster]

He/she probably is in the USA, Undercovers, but not in the UK. Here - rather than from 'narcotics' - it comes from the Romany word 'nak', meaning 'nose'. Of course, 'nose' is also a name given to an informer. 

[Kingaroo]

I always thought that when you narked on someone, it meant you turned him over to the narcotics police, thus acting as if you yourself were a narcotics officer -- no connection to nose.

[Dusky]

Thanks, all.  We'd moved as far as the snake in the grass theory at work today but, QM, I really like grasshoppers.  I must check if the Old Bill's heard of that one; or "Dad" as I call him.

Interesting that this has progressed to nark and QM's link to the Romany word for nose.  Of course, you can be a bit narked, as well.  I wonder if there's a link to the putting your nose out of joint, which is another thread being woven around here somewhere.

[Quizmonster]

Dear Kingaroo, the earliest recorded use of 'nark' to mean a narcotics agent dates back only to the late 1960s...that's just over a century later than 'nark' to mean 'informer'. Looks like we got in first!

Dusky, the use of 'nark/narked' to mean 'annoy/annoyed' is also from Victorian times. Regarding the �nose out of joint' connection, click http://www.word-detective.com/093098.html#noseoutofjoint for further information.

[undercovers]

good question - and great answers, nice one QM

[Clare A]

Well, I'm surprised not to see this on here yet, but I'd thought that the prison/underworld slang came from the song 'Whispering Grass', for pretty obvious reasons!

Take it that Dusky's a copper's kid, like me...

[Quizmonster]

I believe the earliest version of the song 'Whispering Grass' was the one by the Inkspots in 1940, copied in 1975 by Don Estelle and Windsor Davies. As long ago as the 17th century, rivers, leaves and vines had been described as 'whispering', but there is no recorded use of the phrase 'whispering grass' anywhere prior to the song's appearance.

The earliest recorded use of 'grass' to mean 'informer' was in 1932. So I don't think there is a connection there, Clare.

[Dusky]

What bemuses me, Clare A, is that Whispering Grass was written with the opening line "Why do you whisper, Greengrass?" so many years before Heartbeat was even thought of...

And, yes, I am.  Retired, though.  That's him, not me...  Though he's working again now.  Ok, now I'm confused.