"nerd" etymythology

[Garson O'Toole]

Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>9o get on the stick with these real fat, real eool,
> really craay elothes. Don't be a Party-Pooper or a nerd. Yes,
> everybody is bashing ears about Hoffman's Teen-Age Clothes.
>
> "Bashing ears" was current in tghe '40s, so the "1952" date here is likely
> to be correct. "Party-pooper" was novel in the early '50s.
>
> The point, though, is that the passage seems to include a hard-to-find very
> early ex. of "phat" in its correct spelling.
>
> Which, IIRC, confirms Wilson's recollection that "phat/fat" is more than a
> generation older than the masses assume.

Thanks for your response, Jon,

I have extracted some more text from the Collier's in GB. Apparently,
the word "nerd" appeared in an earlier issue of Collier's in a
"cartoon of a bald-headed announcer reading a satirical radio
commercial on Hoffman's Teen-Age Clothes."

The matching instance in GB for "nerd" appears in an issue of
Collier's after the issue with the cartoon. This later article is a
letter providing commentary concerning the reaction to the cartoon. A
disk jockey read text from the cartoon and the accounting department
of the radio station became confused. They wanted to bill the
non-existent company selling "Hoffman's Teen-Age Clothes".

Here is the extracted raw OCR text which is certain to contain
multiple errors [date is still unknown]:

Backfired Gag "You'll get a large charge from Hoffman's Tcen.Age
Clothes. 9o get on the stick with these real fat, real eool, really
craay elothes. Don't be a Party-Pooper or a nerd. Yes, everybody is
bashing ears about Hoffman's Teen-Age Clothes. They're Frampton.
They're pash-ple. They're MOST! Everybody from Jelly-tots to Cool
Jonahs gets a big tickle from Hoffman's threads. These suits are
really made in the shade, and when your Dolly, or double bubble, sees
you wearing a Hoffman she'll give you an approving Mother Higby and
say. That has It!'. So don't get squishy and be a schnookle. The
gectafrate Is reasonable and we'll make it Chill for you. Remember,
don't ball. The name Is Hoffman's Teen.

Editor: John Norment's recent Collier's cartoon of a bald-headed
announcer reading a satirical radio commercial on Hoffman's Teen-Age
Clothes had radio station WKY, Oklahoma City, going round in circles.
It started when WKY disk jockey Tom Paxton commented on the cartoon
and read part of it on his show. The transmitter engineer, hearing a
trade name, logged it as a commercial. The accounting department, on
receipt of the log, tried to track down the "Hoffman" account so it
could bill them. When no such account was located, Paxton was called
on the carpet for giving an unauthorized commercial. He rescued
himself by producing the cartoon. Ray Scales, WKY & WKY-TV, Oklahoma
City, Okla.

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