jerk = 'stupid person' (1928)

[Ben Zimmer]

Brett Reynolds, on his "English, Jack" blog:

---
http://english-jack.blogspot.com/2011/03/antedating-jerk.html
Just now iTunes threw up Harry McClintock's 1928 recording of "Big
rock candy mountain", which contains the line, where they hung the
jerk who invented work. "Hey," my mind said, "I'll bet that's a very
early recording of the word jerk." So I hied myself over to the OED
website to check it out.
Sure enough, a jerk, as in a stupid person, is listed in the OED as
n.1 sense 5, and, as you can see, the first example is from 1935.
---

HDAS has a cite from 1919 with "Jerk" used as a (presumably
pejorative) nickname -- as discussed by Dave Wilton:

http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/site/comments/jerk_jerkwater_jerk_off_jerky/

But I think 1928 would indeed be an antedating for a clear-cut use of the noun.

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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