G-Man (short for Government Man) is slang for a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent. The word "Government" stands for the United States Federal Government, as opposed to state or local government police agencies. It is also a film called " G-Men" staring James Cagney.
In FBI mythology, the nickname is held to have originated during the arrest of gangster George "Machine Gun" Kelly by agents of the Division of Investigation (DOI), a forerunner of the FBI, in September 1933. Finding himself unarmed, Kelly supposedly shouted "Don't shoot, G-Men! Don't shoot, G-Men!"[1] This event is dramatized in the 1959 film, The FBI Story, where its somewhat implausible quality is in no way diminished. The earliest cite in OED for the American usage (as opposed to the Irish, see below) is 1930 from a book on Al Capone by FD Pasley.
With the popularity of "Film Noir" and gangster films during the 1940s and 50s, 'G-Men' became a popular slang term for the FBI.
The term "G-Man" was also used at least as far back as 1916 in Ireland as a reference to the detectives of the Dublin Metropolitan Police force's "G" Division, whose job it was to collect information on the various revolutionaries within the city.[2]
See also
- FBI portrayal in the media
- Gang Busters radio program originally called "G-Men" and developed in part by J. Edgar Hoover.
- G-Man (Half-Life)
- Junior G-Men
References
- ^ "Timeline of FBI History". Federal Bureau of Investigation. http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/history/historicdates.htm. Retrieved 2006-11-23.
- ^ Dobbie, Elliot V. K. (December 1957). "Miscellany: Did 'G-Man' Come from Ireland?". American Speech 32 (4): 306–307. doi:. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1283%28195712%2932%3A4%3C306%3AD%27CFI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-R. Retrieved 2006-11-22.
External links
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