Loser

[Alice Faber]

You must not spend a lot of time on Usenet and web forums. Here's an
example (the first one that came up when I searched google groups):
<http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.diet/msg/71470cb3f1c853b7?hl=en&>

Joel S. Berson wrote:
> And the verb we now spell as "lose" is often spelled "loose" in
> 18th-century writings.
>
> Joel
>
> At 12/21/2006 10:41 AM, you wrote:
>> In the third poem of Ben Jonson's "Celebration of Charis in Ten
>> Lyrick Pieces" (posthumously published in 1640), the
>> persona--scorned by the lady and struck helpless by Cupid's
>> arrow--exclaims, "Looser-like, now, all my wreake / Is, that I have
>> leave to speake, / And in either Prose, or Song, /
>> To revenge me with my Tongue." Some editors alter the spelling of
>> "looser-like" to "loser-like." One glosses "looser-like" as "like a
>> loser."
>>
>> It seems to me that Jonson's use of "lo(o)ser" approaches the sense
>> that's being discussed here: OED, 2e, "an unsuccessful or
>> incompetent person, a failure." The persona is unsuccessful,
>> incompetent, a failure as a lover; his only talent lies in wielding
>> words.  We all know that type of loser (many of us ARE that type of
>> loser!).
>>
>> --Charlie
>> ___________________________________________
>>
>>
>> ---- Original message ----
>> >Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 18:28:23 -0600
>> >From: "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
>> >Subject: Re: incongruity was Re: Judas H. Priest
>> >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> >
>> >OED has 1955 for this particular sense of "loser".
>> >
>> >"LET'S TALK IT OVER!" [advice column] Alma Whitaker, Los Angeles
>> Times; Mar 5, 1939; pg. D6 col 1:
>>
>> >"People have to be taught music from earliest youth . . .  I feel
>> frightfully sorry for such a loser!"
>> >
>> >
>> >> Poster:       Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
>> >> Subject:      incongruity was Re: Judas H. Priest
>> >> --------------------------------------------------------------
>> >> On incongruity, I noticed "loser" used in "Santa Claus Is
>> >> Coming to Town" (1970 if I read the Roman numeral date
>> >> correctly". The Winter Warlock says -- "I still had some
>> >> magic in me. I guess I'm not a loser after all."
>> >>
>> >> I know that I've seen this year after year, but that's the
>> >> first time I noticed "loser."
>> >>
>> >> ---Amy West
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


--
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Alice Faber                                    faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                           tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                        fax (203) 865-8963

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org