"sketchy"

[Joel S. Berson]

My interest was that Dowd's use seemed to have both connotations
simultaneously -- "insubstantial" and "creepy".  Or at least I oscillated.

And were your students main stream?  :-)

Joel

At 11/14/2012 07:27 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>My students were using "sketchy" it to mean "suspicious; shady; fishy" back
>in 1996-97.
>
>JL
>
>On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 7:19 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: "sketchy"
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > makes main stream?
> >
> > Maureen Dowd in the NYTimes, today (Nov 14):
> >
> > "It is disturbing that an ethically sketchy, politically motivated
> > F.B.I. agent could spark an incendiary federal investigation
> > tunneling into private lives to help a woman he liked and later blow
> > it up to hurt a president he didn't like."
> >
> > While "sketchy" here might mean simply "flimsy, unsubstantial" --
> > that is, "ethically-challenged", it could perhaps just as easily mean
> > "creepy" -- as in an F.B.I. agent who sends a woman he is not married
> > to a shirtless photograph of himself.
> >
> > Joel
> >
> > At 11/14/2012 11:23 AM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> > >On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 11:16 AM, Amy West wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Heard in the wild last night on the Marketplace story about John McAfee
> > > > (of antivirus fame):
> > > >
> > > > He started carrying around a gun and this "really sketched people out."
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/web-pioneer-john-mcafee-caught-murder-mystery
> > > >
> > > > I've become familiar with the "creepy" sense of "sketchy" because that
> > > > seems to be the first sense that comes to my students' mind when I use
> > > > it (while the "vague" sense is what I intend), but now here's a
> > > > corresponding verb with particle, where "sketch" seems to have replaced
> > > > "freaked."
> > >
> > >See my 2010 On Language column, "Creeper! Rando! Sketchball!":
> > >
> > >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/
> > >
> > >------------------------------------------------------------
> > >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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