Antedating of " Pinko"

[Jonathan Lighter]

If the -o of "pinko" (n.) is the same as that of "weirdo," "cheapo," etc., and similar nouns, it seems to me to be the earliest in English.

  I'll admit I haven't checked caerfully. But this is certainly my impression.

  JL

RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
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= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Pinko"?=
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In a message dated 1/13/06 1:02:29 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:


> In some cases, we can indeed
> detect (at least etymologically) a combining form in certain
> pejorative nominals:=A0 nympho, klepto, schizo, homo.=A0 But in many
> others we can't:=A0 weirdo, sicko, fatso, wino, wacko, lezbo.=A0 I would
> assimilate "pinko" to the latter category, and in any case not to
> that of eminently upscale forms like "Greco-" and "Franco-".
>=20

WACKO doesn't seem to fit in with the others, since the connection with WACK=
=20
is at best opaque. Yet it seems to be more like the -O of WEIRDO than the=20
psuedo-Spanish -O of STUPIDO.




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