a good friend of mine owned a number of taxi cabs and cab licenses in seattle, washington usa for a number of years. i made a point to visit him regularly at the cab barn off of westlake avenue, west of lake union. as you can imagine, there are quite a number of interesting and colorful personalities in the taxi business - owners, drivers, and maintenance mechanics. some of us are even old enough to remember the television series, taxi. i always enjoyed the visits, just hangin' and observing. in truth i learned more there than in any college class - a microcosm of raw, no-bullshit life. of particular interest was the industry-specific jargon that lends color and character to any industry. one term that i heard owners and drivers use repeatedly was "making the nut". not wanting to appear the naïve neophyte i never did inquire as to the origin or meaning of the term. some years later i was listening to a national public radio commentary on the origin of some carnival jargon that had found its way into more common usage and one of the subject terms was "making the nut".  so i thought i'd share the origin and meaning as well as links to a few of the on-line dictionaries and encyclopedias of "carny jargon" or "carny lingo" that i have found both interesting and entertaining.   

"making the nut" - according to one legend the term comes from the days when traveling carnivals, circuses, medicine shows, etc. would play small towns. the town would frequently charge a fee for the temporary use of public land to set up the show. also, the show people would often charge livery services, food, etc. at local businesses. sometimes, probably more often than not, the shows would leave town in the middle of the night without paying their expenses. so began a practice wherein the local sheriff would visit the show folks soon after their arrival and confiscate one or more of the nuts that secure the wheels to the axles of the show wagons so they couldn't leave town without paying their debts. when they paid up they got the nuts back. thus the term "making the nut" meant literally making enough money to cover the expenses and get the nuts back so the show could leave town.

over time the term came to refer to the overhead or operating expenses of a show. a show always seeks to "make the nut" and begin making a profit above expenses. a show that hadn't yet "made the nut" was said to be "on the nut" and one that had was said to be "off the nut." it was good if you could count on the show to always "carry the nut."

in the taxi business the cabs and associated taxi licenses are frequently owned by someone other than the cab drivers. it is common practice for the driver to pay a fixed flat cash-in-advance fee for the daily rental of the cab. hence, before a driver makes any profit he must make enough to cover the fixed flat fee or he must "make the nut."

following are links to a few on-line dictionaries and encyclopedias of "carny jargon" or "carny lingo" where you can check out other fun terms such as "razzle dazzle", "patch", "smark", "shill", and "dukie lunch".

http://www.goodmagic.com/carny/index.htm