"rookie" from "recruit"

[Mark Mandel]

Those are indeed suggestive. Thanks.

m a m

On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 10:20 PM, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:

> Mark Mandel wrote:
> > ....
> > Is there any evidence for how the military sense would have derived from
> the
> > bird sense?
> --
>
> I don't know of real evidence, but there are possibilities:
>
> (1)
>
> "Rookery" was applied to [disorderly] barracks (military and civilian)
> and the like. Farmer & Henley (1903) (under "rook"): <<Hence ROOKERY =
> (1) a gambling hell; and (2) any place of ill repute: _e.g._, (a) a
> brothel, (b) subalterns' barrack quarters, and (c) a neighbourhood
> occupied by a criminal or squalid population, a SLUM (_q.v._).>>
>
> (2)
>
> Barrère & Leland slang dictionary (1890) says: <<*Rookey* (army), a
> recruit; from the black coat some of them wear.>>
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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