[Ads-l] "spaz(z)" redux

[Shapiro, Fred]

Remind me, what is Shapiro's Law ?  Is it that some important words are first found in the names of race horses -- for example, "skyscraper."

Fred Shapiro


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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Bill Mullins <amcombill at HOTMAIL.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2022 12:40 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: "spaz(z)" redux



> It still seems likely that the noun predated the verb, but I haven't found
> examples for the noun earlier than Joe Fineman's diary entry, also from
> '56. (OED's earliest for the noun is from 1965, from Pauline Kael's _I Lost
> it at the Movies_.) "Spazz" appears in Dr. Seuss's _On Beyond Zebra_ (1955)
> as a fanciful letter of the alphabet (used to spell the name of a beast
> called "Spazzim"), but that doesn't seem relevant.
>
> --bgz

Horse race listings from 1936 - 1940 routinely list a horse named "Spazz" -- a possible example of Shapiro's Law?

A column called "Sports Spasms" in the Evansville IN Press​ from 1927 to 1930 routinely ran letters addressed to "Spaz".

The comic strip "Adventures of Patsy" ran a few episodes in 1947 that referred to "the land of Spaz-mottic".

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________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Bill Mullins <amcombill at HOTMAIL.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2022 12:40 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: "spaz(z)" redux



> It still seems likely that the noun predated the verb, but I haven't found
> examples for the noun earlier than Joe Fineman's diary entry, also from
> '56. (OED's earliest for the noun is from 1965, from Pauline Kael's _I Lost
> it at the Movies_.) "Spazz" appears in Dr. Seuss's _On Beyond Zebra_ (1955)
> as a fanciful letter of the alphabet (used to spell the name of a beast
> called "Spazzim"), but that doesn't seem relevant.
>
> --bgz

Horse race listings from 1936 - 1940 routinely list a horse named "Spazz" -- a possible example of Shapiro's Law?

A column called "Sports Spasms" in the Evansville IN Press​ from 1927 to 1930 routinely ran letters addressed to "Spaz".

The comic strip "Adventures of Patsy" ran a few episodes in 1947 that referred to "the land of Spaz-mottic".

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The American Dialect Society - https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.americandialect.org%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7Cfd433fdbced1411c074308da4eedcc03%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637909080496233836%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=k7vVYjrAqff6g2k6tXXfmsbIRl9ZscwbWxYvXPcNDow%3D&reserved=0

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