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

Thu Jun 16 00:10:11 UTC 2022

It was my damn nickname in my (boys') high school, and I do have very mild CP. nobody better call me that.

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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2022 7:31 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: "spaz(z)" redux

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Subject:      Re: "spaz(z)" redux
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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=E2=80=8B 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=E2=80=8B 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 -
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--=20
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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