Anthony Lopez
Mr. Fritsche
English 513
22, July 2013
Construction Lingo Communication, in a construction work site, varies from all different trades of the work. If a person would watch the site for a day they would probably get the basic knowledge of the job . In the concrete trade, specifically, there are many different ways to converse. Communication is made up of gestures, jargon and slang. These different forms of communication help the workers be more efficient on the job. Hand gestures and whistles are used to alert workers in what there doing. To began pouring concrete one worker will signal the cement truck driver by opening and closing his hand to guide the driver in backing up. Once the truck has stopped the worker uses his pointer and middle fingers, in back and forth motion from his eyes, that tells the driver to show the mix. After observing the mix the worker will let the driver know if the concrete needs water added with a drinking hand gestures. When pouring the concrete starts a worker will use a short whistle to move the truck forward to start another row. A long whistle stops the truck which allows the work to finish the row. The jargon begins following the pour. The jargon describe which responsibility each worker will do to finish the concrete. The workers make statements like, "who's going to rod", "who going to be the shovel man", "who will float it", and "who's going to trowel it out". Roding means leveling the concrete, floating pushes the rocks down and brings up the cream, and troweling smoothes the concrete for a nice finish. The biggest problem in concrete is when a worker "burns up". This means when the concrete dries up to fast and the worker cannot trowel it out, that's a statement a worker never wants to hear. Slang and cursing is used amongst the workers during the process of the job. The slang words that are used by the worker are made up of Spanglish and curse words. Spanglish is the combination of Spanish and English words for example the worker who's floating the concrete says "bring a pala of concrete", it means bring a shovel