sketched out

[Jonathan Lighter]

Thanks, Ben. The "sketch situation" from the '70s certainly seems related,
but it's equally hard to explain.

The new sense of "sketchy" may come from the media news cliche, "Details are
sketchy," as misapprehended by tots here and there.  But that's only a SWAG.

JL

On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 10:27 AM, Ben Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: sketched out
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 9:33 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >
> > Apparently less intense than "freaked out":
> >
> > 2011 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_congresswoman_shot (Jan. 10): He
> would
> > send bizarre text messages, but also break off contact for weeks on end.
> "We
> > just started getting sketched out about him," the friend said.
> >
> > In 1996-97 my undergraduates began reporting "sketchy" as meaning fishy,
> > odd, shady, sinister.  It was new to me then but is quite common now.
>
> See my recent On Language column on creepy/sketchy college slang:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/magazine/31FOB-onlanguage-t.html
> "And just as you can be creeped out by a creepy person, you can be
> sketched out by a sketchy person."
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
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