Scholarly importance of Barry Popik's research

[Gerald Cohen]

    Fred Shapiro has ably stated the issue of Barry's postings,
acknowledging both the value of his work and the desirability of
limiting the OT personal information. I'm not at all troubled by
hearing who Barry sat next to on his trips, but clearly some ads-l
members are.

    With that said, I'd like to re-emphasize the enormous scholarly
value of Barry's work. He has made major contributions to the
understanding of "The Big Apple," "hot dog," "dude," "I'm from
Missouri, you've got to show me," "Windy City," "rush the growler,"
"yegg" (safecracker), "jinx" (which I'll comment on in a message
tomorrow), "Yankees" (baseball team). My index of Comments on
Etymology, contain 75+ items of his that I've published--most of
which I've written up based on material he provided. These articles
(actually, working papers) concern a range of topics such as
"thousand island dressing," "emery ball" (baseball pitch), "crouch
start," "crepes suzette," "gift shop," "chiffon pie," "sis-boom-bah,"
etc. etc. etc.

     Before Barry started globe-trotting, he spent countless hours in
various libraries and historical societies ferreting out all sorts of
information.
Other than newspaper librarians, there is probably no-one in the U.S.
more familiar with obscure publications than he is. In pre-Internet
days he sent me piles of material which I am doing my best to work
through. With the advent of the Internet, he began sharing his
material with ads-l.

     I'm some twenty years Barry's senior and as an academic would
normally be the leader, with Barry carrying out my agenda much as a
graduate student would. But in the present case our roles are
somewhat reversed. I learn an enormous amount just following Barry's
lead and seeing what all he comes up with. His material usually
requires polishing, and I'm doing my best to keep pace with him
(unsuccessfully).

     BTW, besides Barry's postings, there is much other valuable ads-l
material waiting to be polished and compiled into articles. If anyone
is looking for new directions for research on American speech, this
is perhaps the most important one.

Gerald Cohen
co-author with Barry: _Studies in Slang_, vol. 6, (Frankfurt a.M.:
Peter Lang), 1999.