OAD WOTY; Gawker on "squick"

Grant Barrett gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG
Mon Dec 12 20:31:15 UTC 2005


I think you're joking, but just in case you're not, note that I
rebutted the onomatopoeic claim in the Gawker thread.

On Dec 12, 2005, at 14:53, Laurence Horn wrote:
> Very enlightening.  But I think the OUP folks are missing the boat if
> they're claiming that _squick_ is (i) onomatopoeic in origin and (ii)
> derived from the practice of skull-fucking.  If we are to retain
> hypothesis (ii), which seems plausible, I think a much more elegant
> etym(yth)ology is from an orthographic truncation and revocalization:
>
> sku[ll-f]uck > sku'uck > skuick

--
Grant Barrett
Assistant Editor, U.S. Dictionaries
Project Editor, Historical Dictionary of American Slang
Oxford University Press
http://www.oup.com/
198 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
grant.barrett at oup.com
212 726 6142



More information about the Ads-l mailing list