Classless

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS has "no-class," adj., back to 1965, but there's a slightly less definitive ex. as long ago as 1897.

  The earliest HDAS ex. of the adjectival form "no-X" that is beyond question is "No-Taste theatre-goers," 1908.

  Like the poor, the no-taste are ever with us.

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: Classless
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My impression is the same as Jon's. "Classless" in the sense of
"having no class, no couth; lacking 'Klass with a capital K'" is
relatively new. I'd use "no-class," not "classless," unless I wanted
to describe a society that consists only of masses and no classes.

-Wilson

On 1/30/08, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: Classless
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Not in HDAS either. And why? Because as of 1994 it was considerably less common than one might think.
>
> Even today, I find fewer than 50 RG's for "classless son-of-a-bitch" (note hyphens to elicit solid, hyphenated, and hyphenless forms) and fewer than 1000 for "classless asshole." Four for "classless motherfucker."
>
> None of these constructions shows up even once in Google Books. Contrast a *quarter of a million* hits for "classy lady" alone.
>
> So Bill's usage is easily understandable, and has been for over a century. It just seems not to have occurred to people to use it very often.
>
> JL
>
>
>
>
> Laurence Horn wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Laurence Horn
> Subject: Re: Classless
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 3:16 PM -0500 1/30/08, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
> >On Wed, Jan 30, 2008 at 07:49:31PM -0000, Michael Quinion wrote:
> >> In Bill Mullins's note, he used the word "classless". To me, perhaps from
> >> a surfeit of British preoccupations with class, that means a person who
> >> does not belong to any particular social class. He's obviously using to
> >> mean a person who lacks class. So far as I know, this won't work in
> >> British English, but is it a common US form?
> >
> >Yes, quite.
>
> I agree. But curiously, AHD4 doesn't seem to have registered this:
>
> 1. Lacking social or economic distinctions of class: a classless society.
> 2. Belonging to no particular social or economic class.
>
> Nor does the OED, although somehow their lacuna is more explicable
> for the reason Michael gives. Both entries should be adjusted
> accordingly, of course. To be sure, *classless* is compositional,
> given the relevant (count noun) sense of *class* that is claimed to
> be lacking. This sense of the noun is included in the OED s.v. CLASS,
> 5b:
>
> slang or colloq. Distinction, high quality;
> *no class*: of no worth; of low quality, inferior.
>
> but not in the AHD, whose senses include none that could make sense
> of "You got a lot of class".
>
> LH
>
>
> >
> >My favorite such use is in the Sopranos episode
> >"Commendatori", when they're in Naples being served this
> >absolutely incredible meal, and Paulie asks the Italians for
> >some "gravy--you know, red sauce," and one Italian says to the
> >other something that's subtitled, "And you thought the
> >_Germans_ were classless pieces of shit."
> >
> >Jesse Sheidlower
> >OED
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

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



---------------------------------
Never miss a thing.   Make Yahoo your homepage.

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