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

[Jonathan Lighter]

When I entered an all-boys seventh grade in NYC in 1959, "spazz" (n. only)
was among the most commonly used insults, along with "fag," "faggot,"
"retard," and "motherfucker."  "Spastic" (n. & adj.) was also in wide use.
All were new to me at the time. (I was used to "jerk," "idiot," and
"moron.")

I didn't hear "asshole" till 1964.

My wife recalls "spastic" ("definitely) and "spazz" ("probably") from the
early '50s.

JL

On Wed, Jun 15, 2022 at 2:47 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:

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


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