spaz(z), n.

[Jonathan Lighter]

I agree with Larry. Anybody could be despised as a "spazz" now and then, but, in general, a "RE-tard" was contemptible most all the time.  I don't think I heard the word applied to a truly or apparently retarded person either. My wife recalls "RE-tard" from the *early* '50s, BTW, but she grew up in a different part of the city and was unfamiliar with "spazz" till the '80s.

Interesting that both these sophomoric terms are still in wide use in the (pre-)pubescent community nearly half a century later.

BTW, though HDAS has a very early cite for "bitchin'" ("splendid") from James T. Farrell, I never heard it in the '50s. Did anybody?  It's still around after 70 years.

JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: spaz(z), n.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At 7:27 AM -0400 6/24/05, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>> >"Spazz," n. & v., were both in daily use on the West Side of Manhattan in
>>>the fall of 1959. At least among us kids. I remember because I'd never
>>>heard them before. The same was true of "retard," n.
>>
>>Was nominal "spazz" used in the 'uncoordinated' sense (i.e., for someone
>>who frequently "spazzed out"), or in the 'uncool' sense of the 1965 cites?
>> I realize there may have been a subtle gradation from one sense to the
>>other.
>
>As I recall from the early 1960's, "spastic" was used for "uncoordinated
>person" ... obviously based on "spastic" = "person afflicted with a spastic
>[neurologic] disorder". "Spaz[z]" was used as an alternative to "spastic"
>[n.] and I think it was understood to be some sort of an abbreviation for
>"spastic". At that time I don't recall "spastic" or "spaz[z]" applied to
>those who were nerdy or unfashionably dressed but rather to those who were
>awkward, poorly coordinated physically, poor at sports ... or, indeed, to
>those who had neurological disorders. "Spaz[z]" in the more general
>"uncool" sense I remember only from much later (maybe 1980's) (although
>apparently it was around by 1965, unsurprisingly).
>
>-- Doug Wilson

And everything Doug says here holds of 1950's use in the New York
area. Unlike "spastic", it was primarily used (in my experience)
semi-jocularly or metaphorically--the "awkward, poorly coordinated
physically, poor at sports" sense Doug mentions, more than the
literal neurological sense. In this way, it's a bit like "RE-tard",
which wasn't used (in my presence) for those actually suffering from
mental retardation. But it was also more jocular and less cruel than
REtard, and one would have been more likely to describe oneself as "a
real spaz" than as "a real REtard".

Larry


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