[Ads-l] klutz before 1959?

[Robin Hamilton]

Under, "klutz n./ also clutz / [synon. Yid.; ult. Ger. klotz, a log, a lump of
wood] / (orig. US) a stupid, clumsy, socially inept person," GDoS cites:

       1925 [US] H. Leverage ‘Dict. Und.’ in _Flynn’s_ mag. cited in Partridge
_DU_ (1949).
       1956 [US] Gerald Green _Last Angry Man_ 411: He sits there with his
stupid wife, and the big klutz of a son.

The full entry in DU (3rd. ed., 1968) reads:

       *KLOTZ.  A stick, a club : 1925. Leverage; extant.--Hence (?), a stupid
or very foolish person: 1925, Leverage; extant. (Ex German).

Partridge's bibliography (p xii) has:

       Henry Leverage, 'Dictionary of the Underworld' in _Flynn's_, early 1925.

Julie Coleman, _The Life of Slang_ (2012), p. 204, provides the following
details for Leverage:

       Henry Leverage’s ‘Flynn’s Dictionary of the Underworld’, _Flynn’s_ 3-6 (3
Jan.-2 May 1925), Vol. 3: 690-3, 874-7, 1056-7; Vol. 4: 118-19, 488-9, 664-5,
868-9, 1150-1; Vol. 5: 191-2, 280-1, 511-12, 660-1, 818-19, 968-9; Vol. 6:
116-17, 211-12, 426-7.

[Drawing on the Bibliography in Coleman4 (2010), p 438, which provides the same
details.]  

Coleman3, pp. 330-332, discusses Leverage.  

Also relevant is an item in the same volume, p. 130, citing L.W.Merryweather,
'The Argot of the Orphan's Home' (1932) -- in _American Speech_ 7 (1932),
398-407:

       [1932]   _kluck_, n.  A stupid person.  "You big kluck!"

On _Flynn's_:

       Flynn's (Weekly) (Detective) (Fiction) (Magazine)

       Under a variety of titles Flynn's (Weekly) (Detective) (Fiction)
(Magazine) was one of the most popular, and longest running, of all the
detective pulps – notching up an impressive 929 issues over a period of 28
years, maintaining a rigid publication schedule for 17 of those years.

       It was launched in September 1924 by Frank A. Munsey under the name
Flynn's and continued, on a weekly basis, with variations of that name for four
years. The "Flynn's" part of the name was dropped with effect from the 2nd June
1928 issue and it became just Detective Fiction Weekly, the name under which it
is best known and with which it ran for 14 years.

          -- http://www.philsp.com/mags/flynns.html 

So it looks as if there's a solid 1956 dating, a highly dubious 1925 example,
and a possibly relevant 1932 interdating.

Further Affiant Sayeth Naught

RH.

> 
>     On 29 April 2017 at 06:19 Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> 
>     The Oxford dictionary online
>     <https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/klutz> gives the etymology
> of
>     "klutz" ("North American, informal: A clumsy, awkward, or foolish person.
>     ") as
> 
>     1960s: from Yiddish klots ‘wooden block’.
> 
>     Most of the other online dictionaries I've checked agree with this dating,
>     but Merriam-Webster <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/klutz>
> says
>     "First Known Use: 1959".
> 
>     Is it really that new in English? Can anyone antedate it?
> 
>     Mark
> 
> 
>     . <http://X-Clacks-Overhead.dw/GNU-Terry_Pratchett> .
>     <http://www.gnuterrypratchett.com/>
> 
>     ------------------------------------------------------------
>     The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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