[Ads-l] redshirt (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Dan Goncharoff]

re redshirt in Star Trek: I think the real point is that they are not
credited by name in the cast. The death thing is sometimes true, sometimes
not; instead they are filler in the corridors of the Enterprise.

DanG

On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 4:52 PM, Mullins, Bill CIV (US) <
william.d.mullins18.civ at mail.mil> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill CIV (US)" <william.d.mullins18.civ at MAIL.MIL>
> Subject:      redshirt (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> This sense isn't in the OED.
>
>
> _NY Post_ 24 May 2015
> "Martin was further panicked to learn her child had been born in the wrong
> =
> month; many women on the Upper East Side time their pregnancies and IVF
> tre=
> atments to school enrollment, so their child will begin school at the
> oldes=
> t age possible - a practice known as redshirting."
>
>
> http://nypost.com/2015/05/24/inside-the-bizarre-life-of-an-upper-east-side-=
> housewife/
>
>
> _Ukiah [CA] Daily Journal_ 2 Jan 1991 p 5 col 4
> "Redshirting, or holding children back from entering school to be sure
> they=
> 'll be academically strong later, is a practice that started in private
> sch=
> ools on the East Coast."
>
> Melitta Cutright _Growing Up Confident_ NY:Doubleday, 1992. p 187
> "Other parents, believing that older students are always more successful,
> a=
> re electing on their own to "redshirt" their children in hopes of giving
> th=
> em an advantage over other children."
>
>
> _USA Weekend_ 5 Sep 1993 p 16 col 2
> "With a growing emphasis on school performance, more and more parents are
> h=
> olding their kids back from kindergarten for a year.  They think
> "redshirti=
> ng," named after a similar practice among college students, gives kids an
> e=
> dge."
>
>
>
> I also note that neither the OED nor the OED SF project doesn't include
> the=
>  _Star Trek_ sense of redshirt:  A person of minor importance who will
> like=
> ly get killed.  (But it is in _Brave New Worlds_)
> http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedShirt
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirt_(character)
>
>
> Dirk Hayhurst _Out of My League: A Rookie's Survival in the Big Leagues_
> NY=
> : Citadel Press, 2012 p 119
> "Now I felt a lot like one of the red shirts in Star Trek:  nameless,
> facel=
> ess, and the first to die."
>
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org