Short note on scuzzy

Sun Nov 6 16:46:02 UTC 2011

In 1964 a reporter in a Nebraska newspaper expressed considerable
uncertainty about the teen slang term "scuzzy".

Cite: 1964 August 03, Omaha World Herald, It Were a Scuzzy Evening
With Dick C., Fabian, Etc. by Mike Cooney, Page 1, Column 2, Omaha,
Nebraska. (GenealogyBank)

[Excerpt with headline]
It Were a Scuzzy Evening With Dick C., Fabian, Etc.

Take it from the teenagers, Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars is "scuzzy."
It's also "fab, wild, the greatest" or just plain good, depending upon
which of the 9,083 youngsters who packed Rosenblatt Stadium for the
show Sunday night you happen to ask.

"Scuzzy," it seems, is a new teen term for anything very good or very
bad. Thus, the 90-degree heat was scuzzy bad while the show itself was
skuzzy good.

To the layman, the real scuzzy show was in the stands where the
audience (largely female, judging by the shrieks) went through antics
that at times bordered on hysteria.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 8:35 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Short note on scuzzy
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Yes, very nice indeed. There's also the more recent rise of the nominal version, "scuzzball".  I've encountered that much more often than "scuzzbag", even though the latter might be expected through the influence of "scumbag", but another influence is probably "slimeball" vs. ?"slimebag".  (Not that "scumball" doesn't exist, but it's dominated by "scumbag".)  And yes, there's also "scuzzbucket".  Such eloquence in the English language!  It would be interesting to track the usage of these descriptive labels in political contexts.
>
> LH
>
> On Nov 6, 2011, at 6:53 AM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
>
>> Great posting, Victor.  The earliest I find on ProQuest, not as early as Victor's earliest, is the following:
>>
>> 1965 _Boston Globe_ 22 May 7 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)  At the heart of it [reforms in physical training] is the "D.I." himself, trained and dedicated to making Marines out of fat, thin, awkward, shambling, "scuzzy" civilians.
>>
>> Fred Shapiro
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Victor Steinbok [aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM]
>> Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2011 9:57 PM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Short note on scuzzy
>>
>> I'm not on a crusade, but I do like finding items where the definitions
>> may be off-target. Some antedating information is below.
>>
>> "Scuzzy" is a typical college-speak word. I used to hear it from
>> students all the time--but was never under illusion that it was a
>> generational neologism. At best, its usage has its ebb and flow. And
>> it's not limited to teenagers and college students (at least, not since
>> the sixties).
>>
>> OED has it to 1969.
>>
>>> N. Amer. colloq.
>>>  Dirty, grimy; murky.
>>> 1969 Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. li. 16   Scuzzy, groady, skoady, and
>>> grungy should probably be listed also under 'Blends'. ... Scuzzy, for
>>> example, seems to imply fuzzy and scummy: 'Your teeth are scuzzy.'
>>> 1974    A. Fowles Pastime vii. 63   The scuzzy, grey, February days,
>>> neither cold nor clear.
>>> 1976 Daily Colonist (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) 14 Apr. 5/4   Perhaps
>>> Mr. Vander Kalm has good intentions about evicting scuzzy malingerers
>>> from the dole.
>>
>> The first one clearly fits--scuzzy==dirty, grimy. No problem. The second
>> one--maybe. scuzzy==dreary? murky? Close enough, I suppose. The third
>> one is "scuzzy malingerers"--dirty? grimy? murky? fuzzy? The only one
>> that fits is perhaps the non-literal "scummy". Yes, those malingerers
>> are /scum/! Sorry--IMO that's a stretch. The lemma does not even cover
>> all the chosen examples--is there any hope of stretching it to current
>> usage (or even then-current usage in the 1960s, as it turns out)? (the
>> reason I got here--I usually have a hook to get to these things)
>>
>> http://goo.gl/hhed8
>>> This "great guy" forces his students to buy a $200 textbook that he
>>> authored, and from which he pockets the royalties. Used copied of the
>>> 2007 edition can be purchased online for under $5, including shipping.
>>> I mean, I suppose there's a chance that his gouging in this fashion is
>>> intended to teach the students about monopolies, but it's still pretty
>>> *scuzzy*, especially the part where he personally benefits.
>>
>> Again, nothing but the figurative "scummy" fits here, but, again, it's a
>> stretch. Looking under scuzz n. (which, for some reason, is not linked
>> to scuzzy at all, but I "found" it by searching for scuzzbucket), the
>> etymology seems to offer more options--"Probably abbrev. of disgusting
>> adj., though perhaps a blend of scum n. and fuzz n.1".
>>
>> Yes, disgusting sounds more like it--or, even more accurately,
>> "despicable". So scuzzy==despicable? It seems better than "dirty" or
>> "murky". Some in-the-wild sitings suggest also "ashamed", "shameful"
>> (variant of "dirty", I suppose), plus "grimy", "grungy",
>> "greasy"--"disgusting" seems to cover most of these pretty well.
>>
>> I generally prefer the "disgusting" etymology--the scum+fuzzy sounds
>> absolutely ridiculous, but there is a potential phonological connection
>> in "disgusting". And I know someone at ADS came up with that one
>> originally (note the 1969 citation), so OED is blameless (sort of--they
>> did copy it, didn't they?). Is there a lot of evidence that such blends
>> are productive? Something like bam!+slam==BLAM!--yeah, whatever... why
>> can't "blam" be just as imitative as "bam"? What's the list there?
>> Groady, skoady, grungy? Grungy is the big winner here, even getting its
>> own musical style with "grunge". You still hear grody, on occasion, but
>> probably even less frequently than scuzzy". And what on Earth is skoady?
>> And OED gives grody < grotesque, which is similar to skuzzy < disgusting
>> and boojie/bourgie < bourgeois.
>>
>> Even if they can be productive, both scuzz and scuzzy should have
>> similar etymology--there is no reason why one covers two options and the
>> other only one. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that scuzz might be
>> backformed from scuzzy rather than a direct formation--especially if the
>> "disgusting" theory holds water. Whatever the case, the two entries
>> should be linked and cross-referenced and have similar or derived etymology.
>>
>> An interesting citation from 1970 (better than an ADS publication, at
>> least):
>>
>> http://goo.gl/WoQMe
>> The New Centurions. By Joseph Wambaugh. 1970 [Wiki gives January 1971 as
>> the release date, but all copies floating in the libraries and used book
>> markets are copyrighted 1970]
>> p. 48
>>> "We actually do have a place that bounces for everything. It's called
>>> El Soberano, that means the sovereign. We call it El Sobaco. You know
>>> what that means, don't you"
>>> "No," Serge lied.
>>> "That means the armpit. It's a real scuzzy joint. A beer joint that
>>> serves food. Real ptomaine tavern."
>>> "Serves greasy tacos, I bet." Serge smiled wryly, knowing what the
>>> place would look like. "Everybody drinking and dancing I bet, and
>>> every night some guy gets jealous of his girl friend and you get a
>>> call there to break up a fight."
>>
>> The New Centurions was rather popular and came out in movie form in 1972.
>>
>> OED has scuzz from Nov. 3, 1968. Here's another from the same month.
>>
>> http://goo.gl/vhe4J
>> The New Yorker. November 25, 1968
>> p. 43/2
>>> "My biggest pitfall would be to grab fat movie contracts, go on the
>>> Carson show, do the commercials, become the pompous ass and know
>>> everything about sex, religion and philosophy. That's why after /The
>>> Graduate/ I waited seven months before picking Ratso Rizzo in
>>> /Midnight Cowboy/ to destroy Benjamin. Ratso Rizzo is a scuzz. But
>>> that's not out 'til April.
>>
>> I had to do a double-take when I saw this one because here's the OED quote:
>>
>>> 1968 /Sunday Sun (Baltimore) / 3 Nov. d1/5,   I ... did 'Midnight
>>> Cowboy' where I'm /Ratso Rizzo/, a complete scuzz.
>>
>> Luckily, someone rescues Dustin Hoffman from being THE vector on scuzz.
>>
>> http://goo.gl/ykfmW
>> Time. 1966 [year confirmed, issue unknown--GB lists as Part 1.]
>>> The language of personal insult flourishes. A /zilch/ is a total loss,
>>> and so is a /wimp, dimp, dipley nerdly, lizard, sink, barf, scuzz,
>>> skag, Jane, lunchbucket/, or anyone whose mind is in the /soil bank/.
>>> At the University of North Carolina, last year's /fink/ is this year's
>>> /squid, cull, troll/ or /nerd/.
>>
>> OED has zilch from 1966, with earlier cites giving a proper name
>> (nickname?) that hopefully means the same thing. But no mention is made
>> of it being a personal insult, calling someone a nothing, a nobody.
>>
>> http://goo.gl/tEKIu
>> Esquire. Volume 64. 1965 [year confirmed, no issue info]
>> p. 45/2
>>> The splitting off of language, with its fine edge of sadness and
>>> self-pity exists all over the country. The language of the teen-ager
>>> is partly reverie, partly real: it disappears quickly, six or seven
>>> months they say, and before you know it you're twenty-three and
>>> looking at old snapshots, wondering where all the kids are now, and
>>> yeah, what was that crazy word we had? Was it scuzz or barf? You try
>>> to remember, then finally you see what's happening.
>>
>> http://goo.gl/M3Yxv
>> Foreign service journal: Volume 42. 1965 [year confirmed]
>> p. 145
>>> This follow-up aims to keep you informed on the kind of vocabulary
>>> favored by youths between 12 and perhaps 17. Typical samples:
>>> square, zero-cool = old fashioned
>>> fink, scuzz, nerd = an erratic foolish person
>>> hip = chic
>>
>>
>>
>> Finally, antedating of scuzzy. (apparently ==dirty, ashamed)
>>
>> http://goo.gl/BIxcQ
>> Mademoiselle. Volume 65[?]. p. 323/2[?]. 1967 [year confirmed]
>>> Next morning you're sorry you tied one on: you really feel scuzzy.
>>> Next time better turn on with grass.
>>
>> http://goo.gl/osUUb
>> The Making of a Coast Guard Officer: A Covenant with Honor. By Joseph
>> Henry Hughes. 1966
>> p. 166
>>> Even after working on my shoes for an hour, they were pretty scuzzy
>>> after the beating they took in Europe, but they passed.
>>
>>
>> (==dirty, grimy)
>>
>> http://goo.gl/ixHMk
>> Chilton's motorcycle troubleshooting guide. By OCee Ritch[?]. 1966 [?]
>> [nothing confirmed, although the title appears to fit the content]
>> [Photo caption.] p. 23
>>> Scuzzy-looking plug like this is obvious clue to no-start or
>>> hard-start problem
>>
>> The odd one is British. But, again, it's a compiled list.
>>
>> http://goo.gl/PK8Lj
>> British Journal of Sociology. Volume 19(2). September 1968
>> p. 145
>>> My own research has revealed a variety of colourful terms for this
>>> lower class, including the 'hard guys', 'hoods', 'skaggs', 'skuzzy
>>> girls', 'spiders', 'mondos', 'greasers', 'cats', 'punks', 'screw-offs'
>>> and 'SAs'.
>>
>> But the earliest is a publication that I've never heard of. [Scanned at
>> UC libraries.]
>>
>> http://goo.gl/SRVxn
>> Ole. Issues 1-8. 1964 [date seems ok, no page, no issue]
>>> ... Jack the Ripper, Sad Poison Nice Guy, The Inferential Kid--blood,
>>> junk, scuzzy hotels & fuzz--a collage of words, enuf on any pg to
>>> initiate illimitable ąmagination imbroglios 5c proselytize you into a
>>> vampire of Jungle Hotspur Sap FOREVER!
>>
>> I have not checked newspapers.
>>
>>     VS-)
>>
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