"Clunker" not in OED?

[Ben Zimmer]

On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 3:22 PM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
>
> Joel has pointed out a significant omission in OED.  HDAS has _clunker_
> with a 1942 first use.  I see a 1938 citation in Newspaperarchive, but I'll
> look some more before posting details.

I wrote about the automotive type of "clunker" (and "junker") in a May 2009 Word
Routes column, with cites back to 1936.

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/1849/

And then on ADS-L I posted a 1933 cite for "klunker":

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0905B&L=ADS-L&P=15845

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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