Coney-catching Coney-catching Coney-catching is Elizabethan slang for theft through trickery. It comes from the word "coney" (sometimes spelled "conny"), meaning a rabbit raised for the table and thus tame. A coney-catcher was a thief or con man. It was a practice in medieval and Renaissance England in which devious people on the street would try to con or cheat vulnerable or gullible pedestrians. The term appears in "The Taming of the Shrew" and "The Merry Wives of Windsor" by William Shakespeare, and in the John Florio translation of Montaigne's essay, "Of the Cannibals." The term was first used in print by
Coney Island (restaurant) the owners of the first Coney Island restaurants did not trademark the name or business plan, many other restaurants began using the same name and formula. Coney Islands were opened throughout the city by Greek immigrants. Coney Islands have developed a distinctive dining style that is repeated in hundreds of different restaurants throughout the metropolitan Detroit area and elsewhere in Michigan and other nearby states. There are some regional variations though, such as the chili sauce, which is more liquid in Detroit area Coney Island restaurants compared to the drier sauce served in Coney Island restaurants served in the nearby