whack 'whacked'

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Tue, Mar 16, 2004 at 02:07:00PM -0500, Grant Barrett wrote:
> On Mar 16, 2004, at 13:47, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
> >this was new to me, but then i often come in late to the great opera of
> >language change.  what we have here is clearly an adjective "whack" --
> >note modification by degree "how" here and by other adverbs in examples
> >like the following, from google searches:
>
> Yeah, it's an oldy, but it's still in use. The earliest cite I see is
> 1987. Early cites are usually spelled "wack," and come from hip-hop or
> black America. Both spellings are still around.

The famous Keith Haring "Crack is Wack" mural in Harlem,
which someone else mentioned, is from 1986. There's a
_wack_ in a 1986 Salt N Pepa song as well. I don't have
any materials handy but I'm pretty sure it's a few years
earlier still.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED