Re Joseph's comments below:
"I believe that the latest use of the term wise guy is to
tell others that
this guy is in the know about the mafia, a "wise" guy.
Possibly a made man
or on his way. It was popularized by several gangster movies.
I also
believe it became more well known via the TV series
'Wiseguy.'"
The first time I ever read "wise guy" as a euphemism for an
organized
crime figure was in William Caunitz's debut novel *One Police
Plaza*. The
book "Wise Guys*, from which *Good Fellas* derived, followed
soon after.
The late Bill Roemer, alegendary federal cop who spent a two
decades
fighting the Chicago mob, said in his autobiography *Man
Against the Mob*
that "wise guy" was an Eastern Seaboard expression,
equivalent to the term
"made man" or "made guy" which was more common in the Windy
City and the
rest of the Midwest. Of course, that still doesn't explain
the
derivation. - Jim Doherty
--UNS_gsauns2_3052832349--
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