"Clunker" not in OED?

[Shapiro, Fred]

"Clunker" appears a couple of times in 1937 in Newspaperarchive.

Fred



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Shapiro, Fred [fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU]
Sent: Saturday, February 19, 2011 3:22 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "Clunker" not in OED?

Joel has pointed out a significant omission in OED.  HDAS has _clunker_ with a 1942 first use.  I see a 1938 citation in Newspaperarchive, but I'll look some more before posting details.

Fred Shapiro



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From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Joel S. Berson [Berson at ATT.NET]
Sent: Saturday, February 19, 2011 2:56 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: "Clunker" not in OED?

Why does the OED not have an entry for "clunker"?

My Webster's New World, 3rd College (1989) has:

1.  An old machine in poor repair; esp. a noisy or dilapidated automobile;
2.  A thing that is worthless, inferior, unsuccessful, etc.

The OED does contain "clunker" in three quotations.

The one under "war" certainly fits sense 1:  "1945    Fortune Aug.
208   Five war-weary Liberators, described with horrors by their
pilots as 'clunkers'. "  [A brief investigation  shows this sense can
be moved back to 1932, Business Week, or 1926, English Journal, vol.
15 (the latter's volume number agrees with the English Journal's
initiation in 1912).]  Ignore the Indiana Digest of 1911 -- the text
is not "clunker" but "danger".

The one under "question and answer" fits sense 2:  "1991    Source
Dec. 17/2   He golly-gee-whizzes his way through the
question-and-answer, asking such clunkers as 'What's the worst thing
you've done?' "

And the one under "over-proportioned" adds a sense new to Webster and
moi:  "1981    Christian Sci. Monitor (Nexis) 29 Jan. 15   Once known
as 'clunkers,' recliners in the past have too often been
overproportioned, outsize, and clumsy.  "
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There is also A etymological dictionary of the Scottish language ...:
Supplement - Page 228, John Jamieson - 1825 , with "Clunker" (Sc.)
and a definition as "a bump".  Another dictionary has a quotation
from 1793:  "See Clunker. He hiz a clunkart o' a knot on's hehd nae
mowse. 3. A stout, dumpy person, gen. applied to a child. ... Ags. He
has a clunker on his croun, Like half an errack's egg, Piper of
Peebles (1793) 18 (Jam.). "
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Joel

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