"Jock"

[Dennis R. Preston]

>Fred,

Certainly not. Us Louisville-area jocks were jocks in the 40's. This
is the "athlete" sense of jock, not the later preppie (or non "hood"
sense) sense.

dInIs

>yOn Thu, 4 Jan 2001, Tymkovich wrote:
>
>>  Does anyone know when the word "jock" first was used to describe a person
>>  skilled in sports?  Specifically, was it in use in the 1910-1930 era?
>
>No, I don't think so.  I believe that "preppie," "jock" and "wonk" all
>originated as part of a tripartite division of Harvard students in the
>1950s, perhaps a little earlier.  The earliest citation I have found for
>"jock" is from the Harvard Crimson, 21 Feb. 1958; I contributed this to
>the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, which printed it
>as their first use.
>
>Fred Shapiro
>
>
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>Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
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--
Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736