"rookie" from "recruit"

[Mark Mandel]

Is there any evidence for how the military sense would have derived from the
bird sense?

m a m

On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 2:16 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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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