Natural Experiment in the Diffusion of Slang

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:32 PM -0700 10/22/04, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>On tonight's episode of "Joan of Arcadia," CBS's theologically
>oriented drama of teen angst, one patch of dialogue included the
>statement,
>
>             "He's the scuzzcrack that fired you from the yearbook."
>
>A few minutes later,
>
>             "He fired you from the yearbook because he's a scuzzcrack."
>
>A quick check of the Web and the Usenet groups at 9:00 p.m. EDT
>revealed not a single occurrence of the evidently neologistic
>"scuz(z)crack" or "scuz(z)(-)crack
>
>It will be interesting to see if it begins to show up in the future.
>
a (deballed) blend of "scuzzball" and "crackball"?