FSBO or fisbo or fiz(z)bo (For Sale By Owner) (1977, 1982)

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Feb 23 22:38:28 UTC 2006


At 1:42 PM -0500 2/23/06, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>There's a story in today's NY Sun, first page of the second section, about
>NYC owners selling their own apartments. It's called "fisbo" or "fiz(z)bo" or
>FSBO--For Sale By Owner.
>...
>Is it possible that this old term is not in either OED or HDAS?
>...
>..._Self-Selling  Is Casualty Of Times; The Nation's Housing Hard Times Turn
>Sell-It-Yourself  Trend _
>(http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=6&did=130525512&SrchMode=1&sid=2&Fmt=12&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1140719663&cli
>entId=65882)
>By Kenneth R. Harney. The Washington Post (1974-Current file). Washington,
>D.C.: Jul  26, 1980. p. E1 (2 pages) :
>Today, by contrast, says Jack Hallaban of Rich Port Realtors, "there's
>hardly anybody in those same neighborhoods going 'fizzbo'"--for sale by owner
>(FSBO)."


Very nice.  I especially like the "going fizzbo".  One of those
epenthetic acronyms, unlike the semantically related "nimby", which
is a pure one.

Larry

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