[Ads-l] Slight But Important Antedating of Term "Oscar"

[Stephen Goranson]

Thanks, all--several really quite fine contributions!

Here's a provisional (simplified, improvable) chronology of potentially (or not-ly) related items:


1924, 1925, 1926, 1928, 1929, uses (in the U.S.) of "dumb Oscar," a generic though somehow deficient guy (OED n. 2; HDAS; GDoS; GB; HT)

1927, The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length talkie (non-dumb)

1929 May, the first Academy Awards

1929 Nov, "Oscar-term for 'electrical oscillations'"

1932, 1933, microphone Oscar

1934, S. Slosky uses Oscar (and "little Oscar') for AMPAS awards. (I agree with Fred that Slosky is quite unlikely to be the coiner.)

1934ff, etymythology (TM) attempts to link the award to one or another individual person

1936, FBI buys "little Oscar" listening device

21st century, etymology becoming clearer


Stephen Goranson

http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/

Stephen Goranson's Home Page - Duke University<http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/>
people.duke.edu
"Celsus of Pergamum: Locating a Critic of Early Christianity," Ch. 30 in The Archaeology of Difference: Gender, Ethnicity, Class and the "Other" in Antiquity: Studies in Honor of Eric M. Meyers (AASOR 60/61, 2007 ...




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