[Ads-l] klutz before 1959?

[James A. Landau]

On Sat, 29 Apr 2017 12:50:47 Zone + 0000 Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU> wrote:

<begin quote>
FWIW, a 1946 novel, Mr. Adam, by Pat Frank (concerning an atom bomb that 
made men infertile) includes a character Mr. (Percy) Klutz. According to 
HathiTrust "a klutz" appears on p. 90. In the reedition at Amazon ("look 
inside!" p. 71 "I didn't want my secretary to have any delusions that I 
was a Klutz or even a half-Klutz."

The book is available here:

http://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20160921
<end quote>

Things are more complicated than you indicate.  "Klutz" is a surname.  According to Wikipedia
"Klütz (or "Kluetz") is a surname and a town in the Nordwestmecklenburg district, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany"
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klutz

and as a cross-check I Googled "David Klutz" and found 382,000 hits.

It is possible that Pat Frank, rather than employing the slang meaning of "klutz", decided that his character needed a surname that was both German and exotic-sounding and a quick look at a phone directory turned up "Klutz" which fits both requirements.

- Jim Landau

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