hacker

[Victor Steinbok]

  Six of one, half a dozen of the other. I cannot answer that question
definitively, of course, but I would like to note that only a couple of
nicknames have "basket-brawl" implications. Some of the rest are
variations on the names (Prouncer, Rocky Stocky), but the rest have
neither connection. For my part, I doubt that this use of the verb
"hack" has been around before the 1970s, but there is nothing scientific
about this claim.

I did mention "hacking"=="cutting off" connection, but the sense of
"hacking" that is the same as "mugging" in sports context seems to be
fairly recent (I was not around in the 50s, so I don't know). I could be
wrong of course--there is an OED subentry "hacker"=="cutthroat", but
this just seems to be a homologous development (hacking implies a
chopping motion to slap the ball out or to hit an arm, in basketball, or
kicking out at the shins in soccer, and mugging implies a rough
treatment, usually a foul, and the two can be coincident and synonymous,
but this is not something that developed from
"hacker"=="butcher"-->"cutthroat").

An entirely different use of "hacking"--"hacking coat". This is "hacking
vbl. n.2." in the OED. There is a corresponding "hacking length",
implying the length of coat commensurable with a hacking coat, but there
is no "hacking pockets". The Tech, on the other hand, has an ad for an
outer coat with "two lower hacking pockets with flaps, and two upper
muff pockets".

http://tech.mit.edu/V78/PDF/N38.pdf

See The Coop ad for The Sportster on p. 4.

     VS-)

On 7/28/2010 9:59 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> Isn't the "Hacker" below more likely someone who fouls repeatedly in
> the basket-brawl game?  A "hack" is a foul committed by striking the
> opponent's shooting arm during his act of shooting. And therefore no
> connection with computers, telephone systems, or campus pranks.
>
> Although I don't find this sense in the OED.  And OED has "hack, v.1,
> in sports only for football.)
>
> Joel
>
> At 7/28/2010 07:56 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>> The Tech, vol. 78:9. March 11, 1958
>> Basket-Brawl Game Planned For Faculty Early This Spring. p. 6/1
>>> Last year's game, won by the Science-Administration five, featured
>>> such Tech notables as "Easy Uno" Ingard, Dean "White Bucks" Speer,
>>> Nicholas "Iron Man" Grant, Dean William "Hacker" Holden, "Rocky
>>> Stocky" Stockmayer, Mal "Waban Wrecker" Kispert, Joseph "Bonus Baby"
>>> Synder, Charles "Killer" Miller, Rog "Prouncer" Prouty, and John "The
>>> Stilt" Murphy. The officials included President Killian, Deans Rule
>>> and Fassett, Dr. Stratton and Dean Thresher.
> Joel
>
>

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