beezark (1919)

[Jonathan Lighter]

No way to be certain, but Baer may well have coined it. It's rare in print, and I've never heard it used.

Am surprised to find hundreds of Googits on "Bezark" as a surname.  The slang term would thus appear to be an arbitrary application of this.

JL

Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Benjamin Zimmer
Subject: Re: beezark (1919)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Thu, 30 Jun 2005 05:47:35 -0400, Benjamin Zimmer
wrote:

>"Be(e)zark" (HDAS: "an odd or contemptible man or woman") was recently
>discussed on Ray Davis' Pseudopodium blog:
>
>http://www.pseudopodium.org/ht-20050423.html#2005-05-11
>
>HDAS has it from ca1925 (Damon Runyon, _Poems for Men_).
>
>-----
>1919 _Atlanta Constitution_ 25 May B3/2 THE BUGS have no use for the
>beezark who carries a picture of himself in the back of his watch. It's
>a crippled loving cup that only has one handle.
>["Two and Three: Putting the Next One Over" by Bugs Baer]
>-----

Turns out this was one of Baer's favorite epithets (he was also partial to
calling people "sapp"). Here are two more cites from his column:

-----
1919 _Atlanta Constitution_ 26 May 8/4 Scientists still trying to dope out
how a three-cushion beezark can miss a ball by 11 feet on a 10-foot table.
-----
1919 _Atlanta Constitution_ 29 May 14/4 Saddest thing outside of a wet
straw hat is to marry an old beezark for his money and not get it.
-----

Did Baer coin it, or just popularize it?


--Ben Zimmer

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