"go bazooka"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Tue Feb 26 15:05:03 UTC 2008


At 9:43 AM -0500 2/26/08, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 8:49 AM, Jonathan Lighter
><wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>   Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>>
>>  >  At 2:29 PM -0500 2/25/08, Mark Mandel wrote:
>>  >  >"Go berserk" is often pronounced /b@'z at rk/. Google has about
>>*246,000* hits
>>  >  >for "bezerk".
>>  >
>>  >  ...whence also the popular mot in the 60's referring to "Beserkley"
>>  >  (California).
>>
>>   Fox News invariably refers to Berkley that way (city and campus).
>>
>>    HDAS: 1976 (earlier exx. undoubtedly now findable).
>
>Newspaperarchive has references to Matthew Kaufman's Beserkley record
>label back to July 14, 1974 (Oakland Tribune).
>
>--Ben Zimmer

I'm almost positive it was extant by the late 60s, but I could
be...um, misremembering.  Are the Berkeley Barb and L. A. Free Press
included in that archive?

(FWIW, unlike dInIs, I'm an "s" voicer in "berserk", which does makes
"Bezerkley" a more plausible formation for me, despite the fact that
I'm also rhotic.)

LH

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