[Ads-l] skip

[Jonathan Lighter]

Short for 'skipper.' OED has 1830 in a very general sense of 'manager,' of
which this is (unwisely I think) considered a mere nuance. The editors
call it "Originally Scottish." This cite calls that judgment into some
doubt:

1830 _Eastern Argus_ (Portland, Me.) (Dec.31) 1 :"[Aboard] the United
States sloop of war Vincennes.... 'We'll tell the Skip that the earthquake
threw the hammer overboard.'"

During WW1 it (and presumably earlier) was also frequently applied to
captains of the U.S. army and marine corps. OED has this from 1921, again
subsumed under 'manager.'

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

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