Smart Aleck (1730?)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   "Smart Alec" is mentioned in Irving Lewis Allen's CITY IN SLANG (Oxford University Press, 1993, paperback 1995 with my name added for "Big Apple").  There is a "smart alec" footnote to Gerald Cohen's STUDIES IN SLANG.
   Allen's CITY IN SLANG is hardly obscure.  You can buy it right now at your local Barnes & Noble.

---------------------------------------------------------------
SMART ALECK

   From the NORTH AMERICAN WOMEN'S LETTERS ABD DIARIES database (available at the NYPL, NYU, and here at Columbia):


1. Franks, Abigail Bilhah Levy. "Letter from Abigail Bilhah Levy Franks to Naphtali Franks, December 12, 1735" [ Note]
28 There were three weekly newspapers in London in 1735. The Country Journal: or The Craftsman which began publication in 1727, reported foreign and domestic news, as well as carrying advertisements. The Grub-Street Journal, a "literary paper run by a number of smart alecks" was first issued in 1730 and was discontinued in 1737 and rerun in 1738. The third was the Weekly Miscellany, first issued in December, 1732. It included accounts of religion, learning, and foreign and domestic news.It was a leisurely paper written by those accustomed to deal

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Results Bibliography
Franks, Abigail Bilhah Levy, 1696-1756, Letter from Abigail Bilhah Levy Franks to Naphtali Franks, December 12, 1735, in The Lee Max Friedman Collection of American Jewish Colonial Correspondence: Letters of the Franks Family, 1733-1748. Hershkowitz, Leo and Meyer, Isidore S.. Waltham, MA: American Jewish Historical Society, 1968, pp. 171. [Bibliographic Details] [Biography] [12-12-1735] S2057-D011 Franks:L2057-11