BRIBES, BRIBERY

            This list of definitions is not meant to be comprehensive but instead an aid to help fiction writers make their character’s dialog sound “authentic.” Some are occupational slang. Recording studio musicians for example loath “clams” (sour notes). Others are basic terms. To a sailor the hold is where cargo is stowed aboard a ship. To a gambler the hold is the bet percentage held back by a casino.

            Whether descriptive (“something small”) or no-nonsense (“the bite”) or poetic (“black mist”) it means the same thing. And wherever business is done in the shadows there is no escaping it. No people, no country is immune. It is the universally detested bribe.

    

                                                                                                   Michael McKeever

BRIBES, BRIBERY:

Area________      Term_______________________________

Africa/East            chai (“tea” in Swahili)

Africa/East            kitu kidogo (“something small” in Swahili)

Africa/Nigeria       cadeau

Africa/West          dash

Africa/West          chingola

China                    huilu

France                  pot-de-vin (“jug of wine”)

Germany               schmiergeld (“grease money”)

Italy                      bustarella (“little envelope”)         

Japan                    kuroi kiri (“black mist”)

Mexico                 una mordida (“the bite”)

Middle East          baksheesh

Russia                  vzyatka

Spain                   el sorborno

United States        hush money