"Wife-beater" as article of clothing

[Alice Faber]

>In a message dated 5/12/2000 2:02:56 PM, highbob at MINDSPRING.COM writes:
>
><< can't a literary source be the inspiration for a term, without the
>term itself being used in the source? >>
>
>I wouldn't in principle want to rule it out--but I'd want SOMETHING concrete
>to pin it on, e.g., a contemporaneous account in which someone said for the
>first time, "a wife-beater shirt--you know, like Stanley wore in STREETCAR."
>
>My own scepticism about the putative STREETCAR/WIFE-BEATER connection is
>further heightened by my own acquaintance with the term. I have been familiar
>with STREETCAR for over 40 years, but I never heard the term WIFE-BEATER =
>'white tank-top-type undergarment' until the last few months.

I don't remember when I first heard the undershirt called a
WIFE-BEATER, but it's at least 20 years ago, perhaps 30. I
encountered the term when I moved someplace, but I don't recall
whether it was from other Americans on my program in Israel (which
would make it 1972), when I first moved to Texas (which would make it
1974) or when I moved to Florida (which would make it 1980).

Alice Faber, Manager                                         (860) 685-2954
Infant Language Development Laboratory                  afaber at wesleyan.edu
400 Judd Hall--Wesleyan University                               or
Middletown, CT 06459                             faber at pop.haskins.yale.edu