"rookie" from "recruit"

[Jonathan Lighter]

The ety. may only be infl. by "recruit."

Here 's an old Scottish ex. where it means "rook," the bird, though
admittedly as a diminutive:

1836 _The Atlas_ (London) (July 31) 488 (NewspaperArchive): Hast thou no
cosie ingle nookie/ Whar' thou canst roost up like a rookie?

The printed evidence shows "rookie" coming into use in American writing
during and after the Spanish-American (1898), but an 1897 ex. in
NewspaperArchive implies its common use a decade earlier.  Like "rookie"
irself, the variant "rook" was familiar in both the army and the navy.

I've never noted either in any contemporaneous writings or later memoirs of
the Civil War.  It seems certain that, as far as the general public goes,
the word "rookie" was introduced by the writings of Rudyard Kipling.

JL




On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 9:33 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "rookie" from "recruit"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The original cite really is from 1868 -  _Colburn's United Service
> Magazine_
> (London) (May, 1868), p. 87.
>
> JL
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 9:00 AM, Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com>
> wrote:
>
>  > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: "rookie" from "recruit"
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 08:49:07AM -0400, Stephen Goranson wrote:
> > > OED: rookie slang. [Orig uncertain; perh. corruption of recruit n.]
> OED's
> > earliest quotation is from 1892.
> > >
> > > December, 1891 {Google Books 1868 date mistaken], new series vol. LIV,
> > page 87
> > > The Eclectic magazine of foreign literature, science, and art
> > >
> >
> > Thanks. Our revised draft entry, which I assume will appear in
> > the next update, has an earliest quote of 1883.
> >
> > Jesse Sheidlower
> > OED
> >
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