"flicker" = 'movie' (1912) + "flicker alley" (1911), "flicker house" (1913)

[Laurence Horn]

On Feb 11, 2013, at 5:11 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:

> * "flicker" = 'movie' (OED2 1927)

whence "flick" (OED 1926) and "the flicks".  Seems like someone might have noticed that the truncation is cited for 1926 and its source for 1927.  1911/12 is more like it.

LH
>
> 1912 Oct 20 _Cleveland Leader_ [GenealogyBank] 6W/6 "Movies," "flickers,"
> and all these thoughtless words do not help the business.
> [quoting _The Universal Weekly_, a motion picture trade paper]
>
> 1912 Dec 22 _Cleveland Leader_ [GenealogyBank] S5/2 (head) Some big
> "flickers" in picture business.
>
> * flicker alley
>
> 1911 Oct 17 _Manchester (UK) Guardian_ [ProQuest] 14/1 The [London]
> cinematograph trade is yet too young to have evolved a type, but it seemed
> to me that the denizens of Flicker Alley (as they call this passage) all
> have something characteristic that marks them off from ordinary men.
>
> 1912 Mar 9 _The Musical Standard_ [ProQuest] 148/2 The very severe
> criticism appearing in the last issue from the pen of Mr. Douglas Donaldson
> anent "Bioscope Music," and his somewhat "chesty" dilatation upon the
> cinematograph theatre have prompted me, under the threatening wrath of the
> potentates of "Flicker Alley," to enter the witness box for the
> perpetrators of that "dangerous poison" -- picture music.
>
> * flicker house
>
> 1913 June 5 _Life_ [ProQuest] 1128/1 For fiction also has its photo-plays.
> And if you miss Dorothy or Jamie any time you're quite as likely to find
> them up garret reading the one as down street at the flicker house watching
> the other.
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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