[Ads-l] instance of "gook" 1907

Amy West medievalist at W-STS.COM
Thu Nov 14 13:08:24 UTC 2019


This is probably a distractor/nonce usage, but today's Upside Down World 
of Gustave Verbeek on Go Comics shows a strip of his from 1907 where 
there's an imaginary creature called a "gook" and limerick describing it:

https://www.gocomics.com/upside-down-world-of-gustave-verbeek/2019/11/14

Don't know if this is already in someone's files somewhere.

MW gives 1901 as the date for the ethnic slur, and OED gives 1935 
(citing American Speech), so while it may not be an interdating because 
of the different referent, it may still be of interest, showing that the 
referent wasn't as fixed yet, still susceptible of taking other 
referents? I dunno . . .

---Amy West

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list