"go bazooka"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Tue Feb 26 16:24:06 UTC 2008


At 10:37 AM -0500 2/26/08, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 10:05 AM, Laurence Horn
><laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>>
>>   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:
>>   >>  >
>>   >>  >  ...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).
>>
>>   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?
>
>No, but here it is used as a barb against the Barb in 1969, from Bob
>Ellison's Chicago Tribune column:
>
>----
>1969 _Chicago Tribune_ 4 July B3/1 For those who would like to run a
>newspaper of their own, the Berserkley Barb is reportedly up for sale.
>Just bring lots of green and a dirty mind.
>----
>
>And David Lance Goines recalls it being in use c1966 (_Coming of Age
>in the 60s_, 1993):
>
>----
>http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=kt687004sg&brand=oac&doc.view=entire_text
>It was at about this time that I began to hear the term "Berserkeley"
>applied to our fair city.
>----
>
>
>--Ben Zimmer

Ah, so I am remembering, not mis-.  1966 sounds exactly right, after
FSM (the Free Speech Movement) but before People's Park.

LH

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