Scam(p(er))?

Nitsuh Abebe, the new NY Times On Language columnist (see this post), has a new column (archived) on the word scam. Most of it is about how the word is more popular than ever and has expanded its remit to cover “any system, however legitimate, that ends with somebody profiting at your expense”; while mildly interesting, this is just another example of language change at work, and you’d have to be a dedicated peever to work up much outrage about it. But he includes a section on etymology: Part of Falcone’s interest in scamming comes from a remarkable place. His grandfather, he says, was a pitchman with traveling carnivals before settling in Atlantic City, where he’d work the piers selling decks of cards rigged for magic tricks. This happens to be the source of the word “scam” itself: All we know for sure, etymologically, is that as of the early 1960s, it was carnival slang for fleecing the public. Beyond that, speculation runs wild. Is it related to “scamp” or “scamper” or “sham?” Does…