Etymology of "wacko"

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 1/14/06 11:21:46 PM, laurence.horn at yale.edu writes:


> At 10:30 PM -0500 1/14/06, RonButters at aol.com wrote:
> 
>  In a message dated 1/13/06 10:15:57 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:
> 
> >
> >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.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't understand this at all. Please explain.
> 
> The idea is that -o turns evaluatively negative adjectives ("pink", "weird", 
> "schizophrenic", "homosexual", "stupid")  or nouns ("wine") into 
> person-denoting nouns, with the semantic change formerly noted (categorization, 
> pigeonholing, increased pejoration, etc. etc.).  If the adjective ends in -y 
> ("sleazy", "wacky"), delete the -y before adding the -o (this is the readjustment 
> rule I mentioned, a common sort of move in word-formation rules, not 
> particularly ad hoc), whence "sleazo", "wacko", and I'd guess "stinko" (< "stinky").  If 
> the source is polysyllabic and contains a connective -o-, drop the material 
> after the -o-, whence "nympho", "schizo", "homo", "klepto".  "fatso" < "fat" 
> involves a different readjustment (OK, a bit ad hoc), "lezbo" involves 
> dropping the post-tonic syllables, also not unheard-of elsewhere.   And so on.   
> OK, I admit the "nothing to it" was a bit cavalier, but derivational morphology 
> marches on.
> 
> L
> 
> 
Thanks for the explanation. I somehow missed the step that e.g. STINKO is 
immediately derived from STINKY, not STINK. Still, in that case, how is WACKY 
derived from WACK? What is a "wack"? Didn't that have something to do with women 
in the army during WWII?