[Ads-l] It=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_a_bird=3B_It=E2=80=99s_a_plane=3B_It=E2=80=99s_?=a boffin

[Jonathan Lighter]

"Boffin" has the vowel of neither "puffin" nor "Baffin." Any connection
with scientific eggheads would have been wholly fanciful, and therefore
probably unprovable.

JL


On Sat, Mar 19, 2022 at 9:11 AM Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:

> Among my errors: missing Hugo’s post; it’sàits typo.
> I had dismissed the relevance of the use of Boffin by Dickens (in Our
> Mutual Friend) and P.G. Wodehouse (Joe Boffin, in at least two works), but
> having a ready-made name might have played a role.
> Eric Partridge also speculated about baffle, probably mistakenly.
> The 1945 date for “Random Soundings” is confirmed by WorldCat and British
> Library, so apparently correcting the OED listing it as 1942.
> I have ordered a copy of Charles Graves’ 1941 book.
> So far, I think OED’s two senses could be merged: experts, hence older
> than new conscripts. And joint RAF and Navy usage in coast defense contexts.
> Watson-Watt (a Scot) dismissed the “back room” characterization,
> preferring, more or less, a bridging function between science and the
> military. When he dismissed a “Colonel Boffin” (a fictional name he later
> invented?) he apparently was dismissing any similarity with the type in
> Colonel Blimp cartoons.
> Stephen Goranson
> https://people.duke.edu/~goranson/
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2022 7:08 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: It’s a bird; It’s a plane; It’s a boffin
>
> Mark Mandel wrote:
> > Make that a "baffining" question.
>
> A 1950 book of slang does claim that "boffin" is partially derived
> from "baffle".
>
> Year: 1950 Copyright
> Title: Sea Slang of the Twentieth Century: Royal Navy, Merchant Navy,
> Yachtsmen, Fishermen, Bargemen, Canalmen, Miscellaneous
> Author: Wilfred Granville
> Quote Page 40
> Publisher: The Philosophical Library, New York
> Database: Internet Archive
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> boffins. In the Navy, officers over the age of thirty-five. (In the
> R.A.F., ‘backroom boys’ or scientists.) The name is partly echoic; cf.
> the dialectal boffle for baffle.
> [End excerpt]
>
> Garson
>
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