[Ads-l] klutz before 1959?

[Jonathan Lighter]

1932 "kluck" = "cluck," often in "dumb cluck."

HDAS was unable to get access to any issue of Flynn's, try as I could.

In my personal experience, "klutz" became familiar only in the mid '60s.


JL



On Sat, Apr 29, 2017 at 3:44 AM, Robin Hamilton <
robin.hamilton3 at virginmedia.com> wrote:

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



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