"go bazooka"

Benjamin Zimmer bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU
Tue Feb 26 15:37:45 UTC 2008


On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 10:05 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
>  At 9:43 AM -0500 2/26/08, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>  >On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 8:49 AM, Jonathan Lighter
>  ><wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>  >>   Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>  >>  >
>  >>  >  ...whence also the popular mot in the 60's referring to "Beserkley"
>  >>  >  (California).
>  >>
>  >>   Fox News invariably refers to Berkley that way (city and campus).
>  >>
>  >>    HDAS: 1976 (earlier exx. undoubtedly now findable).
>  >
>  >Newspaperarchive has references to Matthew Kaufman's Beserkley record
>  >label back to July 14, 1974 (Oakland Tribune).
>
>  I'm almost positive it was extant by the late 60s, but I could
>  be...um, misremembering.  Are the Berkeley Barb and L. A. Free Press
>  included in that archive?

No, but here it is used as a barb against the Barb in 1969, from Bob
Ellison's Chicago Tribune column:

----
1969 _Chicago Tribune_ 4 July B3/1 For those who would like to run a
newspaper of their own, the Berserkley Barb is reportedly up for sale.
Just bring lots of green and a dirty mind.
----

And David Lance Goines recalls it being in use c1966 (_Coming of Age
in the 60s_, 1993):

----
http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=kt687004sg&brand=oac&doc.view=entire_text
It was at about this time that I began to hear the term "Berserkeley"
applied to our fair city.
----


--Ben Zimmer

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