a side note on twink

Garson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Sun Feb 14 22:29:06 UTC 2010


Thanks for the overview of the many meanings of twink.

Twinks was also the nickname of a baseball team called the Hollywood
Stars. Hence, the term twinks was used to describe a group of
primarily young and athletic men from the late 1930s to the 1950s. The
term was widely known because the Los Angeles Times ran many headlines
with the words twink and twinks in the time period. Here is a sampling
of the headlines about the minor league team that can be found in the
Google News Archive:

Cherubs Trim Twinks, 5-2 - Aug 11, 1938
Leading Beavers Test Twinks at Gilmore - Apr 4, 1939
Twinks Hold Stiff Workout - Mar 2, 1940
Twink Twirlers Set for Drill - Feb 22, 1941
Seals Defeat Twinks Twice - Sep 8, 1942
Twinks and Suds Resume Tonight - Apr 13, 1945
Six Still Holdouts as Twink Squad Turns Out - Feb 25, 1947
Old School Star Sold on Twinks' Baseball Shorts - May 3, 1950
Twinks Discard 'Short' Uniforms; It's a Long, Long Trail From Pirates
- Jul 1, 1955
Twink Infielders Hurt in Collision - Apr 12, 1957

1957 was the last year of the Hollywood Stars baseball team. Two of
these headlines refer to the experimental replacement of "the
traditional bloused baseball trousers and stirrup socks with shorts
and long socks in 1950."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Stars

I tried to connect the Hollywood Stars twinks to the twink definition
witnessed in 1962. But I was unable to find any solid evidence
bridging the two different meanings in the archives that I searched.
Perhaps someone else will succeed.

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list