When I got into this fascinating business over 40 years ago, I was 20-something-year-old cub markets reporter working right on the trading floors of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade. My first few weeks on the job were tough because I did not know the trading lingo that pit traders would use. But I eventually learned.
While most of the teeming pits and open-outcry trading in Chicago and New York are now history, due to electronic trading, the arcane language of the traders carries on.
