fighting for punk

[Jonathan Lighter]

Alluding to a once-familiar line in _Hudibras_ by Samuel Butler
(1612-1680):


"When civil dudgeon first grew high,
And men fell out, they knew not why:
When hard words, jealousies, aud fears,
Set folks together by the ears,
And made them fight, like mad or drunk,
For Dame Religion as for punk...."


Where "punk" means "whore."

Presumably the two were fighting over a lady of ill repute.

JL


On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 9:35 PM, George Thompson <george.thompson at nyu.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Subject:      fighting for punk
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A fellow in Georgetown, . . . fighting "for punk," had his nose taken off
> by the teeth of his antagonist.
> New York Transcript, March 4, 1836, p. 2, col. 1
>
> I don't see anything in the OED that's clearly related.
> "punk", noun, #3 (core idea is "Soft decayed or rotten wood"): sense 4.
> colloq. Something worthless; foolish or meaningless talk; nonsense, rubbish,
> from 1869 --- supposing "fighting for punk" meant something like "empty or
> wanton violence"
>
> "punk", noun, #1 (core idea is "prostitute", &c.): sense 3,: a despicable
> or contemptible person; (broadly) a person, a fellow (rare);(b) a petty
> criminal; a hoodlum, a thug. is much later (1904)
>
> Nothing in DARE.
> Nothing in Jonathon Green's Chambers Slang Dictionary
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>
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