[Ads-l] Zilch

[Peter Morris]

>From World Wide Words

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-zil1.htm

You're right that dictionaries are almost uniformly cautious 
about the origin of this word, which means "nothing; zero". 
It appears first in print in the mid 1960s (the first example 
in the big Oxford English Dictionary is from a slang 
collection at the University of South Dakota dated Winter 1966).

Here's an earlier cite with the  meaning "nothing" being  fairly clear. 

"What are the chances for rescue?" an operator asked. 
"Zilch!" somebody muttered.

Popular Mechanics, July 1956
http://tinyurl.com/zzqg2s9


Here's a few other cites, with the intended meaning being 
somewhat less clear. I can't honestly say if any of them mean 
"nothing". 


Having no real choice in the matter Sunbathers all agreed that 
Zilch was the word for Tappan Hall's sub-basement cocktail
lounge ... 

Ensian, (Michigan University magazine)  1958
http://tinyurl.com/gmzkrlp



Four-F's Footlight Front. Medico-Nixed Troupers  From A
to Zilch Also Serving Flag as Morale Corps

The Billboard, November 23 1943
http://tinyurl.com/hd8sd9t

(I suspect that Zilch is being used as a surname here, but
maybe it's a general term for unfit draftees) 



You zilch, don't you know that mast hoops never wear out?
Motor Boating, January 1933
http://tinyurl.com/hkkzqpn


Accordingly, the author often uses the word Zilch as the name 
of a thing whose nature is unknown to the student.

Axiomatic analysis: an introduction to logic and the real number system
Robert Katz, 1964  (?) Google dating disclaimers apply.
http://tinyurl.com/hc3keor





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