Antedating of " Pinko"

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:38 PM -0500 1/13/06, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>In a message dated 1/13/06 1:02:29 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:
>
>
>>  In some cases, we can indeed
>>  detect (at least etymologically) a combining form in certain
>>  pejorative nominals:  nympho, klepto, schizo, homo.  But in many
>>  others we can't:  weirdo, sicko, fatso, wino, wacko, lezbo.  I would
>>  assimilate "pinko" to the latter category, and in any case not to
>>  that of eminently upscale forms like "Greco-" and "Franco-".
>>
>
>WACKO doesn't seem to fit in with the others, since the connection with WACK
>is at best opaque.

< "wacky" + readjustment rule.  Nothing to it.

>  Yet it seems to be more like the -O   of WEIRDO than the
>psuedo-Spanish -O of STUPIDO.