OAD WOTY; Gawker on "squick"

[Grant Barrett]

I think you're joking, but just in case you're not, note that I
rebutted the onomatopoeic claim in the Gawker thread.

On Dec 12, 2005, at 14:53, Laurence Horn wrote:
> Very enlightening.  But I think the OUP folks are missing the boat if
> they're claiming that _squick_ is (i) onomatopoeic in origin and (ii)
> derived from the practice of skull-fucking.  If we are to retain
> hypothesis (ii), which seems plausible, I think a much more elegant
> etym(yth)ology is from an orthographic truncation and revocalization:
>
> sku[ll-f]uck > sku'uck > skuick

--
Grant Barrett
Assistant Editor, U.S. Dictionaries
Project Editor, Historical Dictionary of American Slang
Oxford University Press
http://www.oup.com/
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