skinny-dipping, skinny dip (1947)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

>From Michael Quinion's review of _The Oxford Dictionary of Slang_:

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http://www.worldwidewords.org/reviews/ayto.htm
I do hope it will be taken advantage of, so that we don't get quite so
many dreadful anachronisms, such as the scene in a recent BBC play, set in
the 1930s, in which the American heroine said she was going skinny
dipping; this book would have questioned that usage instantly with its
note that it was first recorded only in 1966.
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Perhaps it wasn't quite that anachronistic.  Sam Clements already found
"skinny-dip" from 1956:
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0401C&L=ads-l&P=R1191

Now "skinny-dipping" and "skinny(-)dip" can be dated back to 1947:

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1947 _Marion Star_ (Ohio) 2 Jul. 6/7 The height of daring was attained by
boys who trudged miles into the country until they reached a swimming hole
far from the madding crowd where skinny-dipping wouldn't offend anybody.
The same kids, grown up, now are accustomed to see what amounts to
skinny-dipping in mixed company without batting an eye.
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1947 _Marion Star_ (Ohio) 13 Sep. 6/7 If town moppets must be given
miniature staircases because their parents are bothered about an
environment of elevators, what's going to be done about giving them some
of the other things city boys and girls never will have, such as as skinny
dips in creeks instead of swimming pools.
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1948 _Valley Morning Star_ (Harlingen, Texas) 14 May 2-6/1 For the
present, he did not foresee skinny dipping becoming a popular pastime with
American women.
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Both of the 1947 cites are from the columnist Truman Twill, while the 1948
cite is from a United Press wire story with the headline "Scanty Swim Suit
Prescribed For Your Ego" (quoting the psychologist James F. Bender, who
thought that "girls should liberate themselves from their clothing").


--Ben Zimmer