Shamus (film) Shamus (film) Shamus is a 1973 American comedy thriller film directed by Buzz Kulik, and starring Burt Reynolds and Dyan Cannon. New York private detective Shamus McCoy is called to the house of Hume, an eccentric diamond dealer, and is given the task of recovering some stolen diamonds. His investigation is thwarted at every turn and it is only when he is beaten by a gang of thugs to warn him off the job that he realizes that he's onto something really big. Using his friend Springy as well as Alexis Montaigne, the sister of a nightclub owner, McCoy digs
Back slang words spoken phonemically backwards. English frequently makes use of diphthongs, which is an issue for back slang since diphthongs cannot be reversed. The resulting fix slightly alters the traditional back slang. An example is "trousers" and its diphthong "ou", which is replaced with "wo" in the back slang version "reswort". Back slang is said to be used in prisons by inmates to make it harder for prison wardens to listen into prisoners' conversations and find out what they were talking about. This use of back slang was highlighted in the 9 June 2010 episode of "Crimewatch Roadshow". Back slang has