tinfoil hat (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Baker, John]

        I agree, Jon, and I think we're in a pretty solid position to
come to some conclusions.

        "Tinfoil hat" clearly was first brought to a broader audience by
the 1983 movie Lovesick, as shown by the reference in the 2/19/1983
Miami Herald movie review quoted by Bill Mullins and which I had
previously contributed,
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0602A&L=ADS-L&P=R358.
There are virtually no references to lunatic tinfoil hats prior to 1983,
although the 1982 example proves that Lovesick did not originate the
concept.

        My earlier post also had this quote from the 11/10/1986 issue of
People (via Westlaw):  "On July 4, 1979, Linda Kozlowski, ''dressed up
like a Martian with a tinfoil cone on my head,'' was hawking ''Skylab
protective helmets'' to crowds watching fireworks from Manhattan's West
Side Highway. At $5 a pop, she sold out her entire supply of the
whimsical cardboard headgear.  None too soon, either. Seven days later
Skylab -- the space station that had begun losing altitude after six
years in orbit -- finally fell to earth. Perhaps Kozlowski has a shrewd
eye for novelties."  The 1979 dating on this recollection seems pretty
solid, although it's not clear that Kozlowski necessarily intended her
tinfoil cone to be of the lunatic variety.


John Baker



-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Friday, March 25, 2011 6:00 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: tinfoil hat (UNCLASSIFIED)

You know, the more I think about it, the more sigificant that post
becomes.

Because by 1982, I'd spent nearly 15 years not only observing
obsessively
but actively seeking out popular, poorly documented locutions. I was on
duty
24/7, especially since I frequently dreamed about this stuff.

If somebody like me did not hear of a "tinfoil hat" for any purpose
whatsoever before 1982, I'd wager that the connection between tinfoil
hats
and deadly paranoid rays must have been pretty obscure. Particularly
since I
went many more years without noticing the connection again.

So even if, as may be, pioneering lunatics were folding their tinfoil
hats
during, say, the Great Depression, and even if Garson or Victor or
someone
else unearths a relevant "tinfoil hat" reference from 1930, it would
still
be the case, based on the evidence, that the allusion effectively
entered
American popular culture near the end of the 20th Century, and there are
undoubtedly millions who didn't pick up on it till years after that, or
still haven't.

JL

On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 4:25 PM, Ronald Butters <ronbutters at aol.com>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ronald Butters <ronbutters at AOL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: tinfoil hat (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
>
> I agree with "completely pointless." A dictionary--even the OED--is
not an
> encyclopedia. Hitler had a braun dog. Should that be recorded under
either
> "Hitler"  or dog"?
>
>
> On Mar 25, 2011, at 4:13 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> > Strangely enough, this jogs my memory and I can recall hearing about
the
> > 1982 incident when it was "newsworthy." I promptly forgot it as
being of
> > merely passing interest.
> >
> > Certainly I never noticed the phrase again till 2000 or so.
> >
> > The 1982 story may really be the effective origin of the allusion.
Or
> this
> > may be a completely pointless post. Or both.
> >
> > JL

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