[Ads-l] Bozo as pejorative use of a PN?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Sounds plausible. A quick newspaper check reveals a number of people around
1910 whose first or last name was "Bozo."

But no clown named Bozo till 1919.

JL

On Mon, Dec 21, 2020 at 11:03 AM Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:

> Charlie Chaplin performed in "The New Janitor" in 1914.
> In 1916 a play with the same title, the lead character is Bozo.
> Since the word bozo, afaik, it attested only later, might this be an
> unfriendly borrowing of an eastern european PN?
>
> Stephen G.
>
>
> https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/readex/doc?p=EANX&sort=YMD_date%3AA&fld-base-0=alltext&val-base-0=%22bozo%20the%20janitor%22&val-database-0=&fld-database-0=database&fld-nav-0=YMD_date&val-nav-0=&docref=image/v2%3A110C9BFA1F116650%40EANX-115C629FA449FA60%402421012-115C62A75730EB90%4062-115C62BE638640E8%40An%2BOriginal%2BCharacter&firsthit=yes
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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