Who is the six? Thieves' throats

Everyone knows that the Six is a person who carries out minor assignments of a higher authority in exchange for his favor. The term is used in criminal lexicon, but recently it is common among people who are not related to crime. There is a verb "six", meaning "to run errands", "please", "wait".

There are so-called woolen prisoners, who pretend to be the main and authoritative, but in fact do so-called lawlessness at will or at the request of the administration. In a sense, they are also six, because any help and cooperation with the prison administration gives the prisoner a chance to be paroled. As a rule, they do not receive coveted UDOs, as the administration of the colony itself does not respect the sixes because of their unsettled moral principles.

Who is the "six"?

Why do subordinates are called exactly sixes? This term comes from the lowest card suit - sixes. One of the most common strategies in the card game "Fool" is to throw all of their sixes at the beginning of the game. Thus, we see an allusion to the so-called cannon fodder - no one appreciates sixes; they are only forced to do what they are ordered to do when they are first demanded. Despite the fact that the term was originally used among thieves, bandits and other criminal persons, today ordinary people are actively using it.

Alternative version of the origin of the word

Who is the "six"? According to another version, this term takes its roots not from the criminal world. Sixes in the 19th century were called young guys serving in taverns. Such a nickname they received again because of the very card that kings and aces serve. Some say that on day six were paid 6 kopecks, and from there also a nickname. Taverns and taverns were the place of frequent gathering of the local underworld, thieves and sharers, who adopted this term, spreading in their circles. Who is the six in Russia in the 19th century? The servant, the errand boy, the servant.

Who is called the six?

To date, there is no clear distinction in this issue. So, who is the six? With the meaning of this word in the criminal world, everything is more or less clear. Among people who are not related to the criminal world, a six is called any person, out of fear and servility, who executes every whim his boss, an authoritative comrade, and so on.

Very often the six do it in order to obtain from their benefactor some privileges. As a rule, their only privilege is a warm place next to the authority itself. The authority does not value its sixes and uses them to achieve some of its goals. The six can be an office clerk waiting for promotion and licking his boss, and a teenager from an unhappy family trying to cling to street authority. Sometimes they are mistakenly called snitches, but they do not have any obligatory connection with the sixes. Not every snitch is a six, and not every six is a snitch.