[Ads-l] kayfabe in today's NY Times

[Stephen Goranson]

Among the unknowns are whether Boris K. Fabe etc. took the name from the word (a potential no-no?) or (unlikely?) the (not quite pig-Latin) word came from that name; whether fabe is related to (later than?) fabian, or whether that is famous-singer-influenced, ........and a potential (?) 'nother:

"...Dan George hasn't been paid off yet for his last wrestling job [[hmmm, job not "match"]] for promoter Ray Fabiani. The Fiddler tells Don he has a working agreement with a New Zealand promoter to whom Don owes money and collected it for him."

Waterbury Evening Democrat, January 10, 1938, 15/1-2. LoC.

Stephen Goranson
________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2023 10:59 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: kayfabe in today's NY Times

Interesting article, sg.
The New York Times opinion piece contains a new word "neokayfabe".

Website: New York Times Online
Article: The Best Way to Explain the G.O.P. Is Found in the W.W.E.
Author: Abraham Josephine Riesman (Mx. Riesman is a journalist and the
author of a biography of Vince McMahon)
Date: Feb. 26, 2023

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/opinion/vince-mcmahon-wwe-trump-kayfabe.html__;!!OToaGQ!r3pUQLcMEcMshoU48cWDjfHtBWRks2Swz9pQwtDMKoo3m53wDNcug7V8bBopf7WSY5Vz4x4tn8oYAf0ENNYZ-uyrAw$

[Begin excerpt]
An owner might direct a wrestler to pretend he’s going rogue against
the company in an outrageous monologue, then tell gullible journalists
that he’s in big trouble with his employer, all to juice interest in
what might happen next on the show. You knew wrestling was usually
fake, but maybe this thing you were seeing, right now, was, in some
way, real. Suddenly, the fun of the match had everything to do with
decoding it.

Although Mr. McMahon was not the sole inventor of what we might call
neokayfabe, he was the one who made it the default policy.
[End excerpt]

Geoffrey Nathan initiated an entertaining thread about "kayfabe" back
in January 2021.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2021-January/158765.html__;!!OToaGQ!r3pUQLcMEcMshoU48cWDjfHtBWRks2Swz9pQwtDMKoo3m53wDNcug7V8bBopf7WSY5Vz4x4tn8oYAf0ENNbcSFrFFw$

I did post a message within this thread about names in wrestling (as
alluded to by sg) which included:

1958 Nov 18: Boris K. Fabian
1959 Feb 17: Boris Kafabian
1960 Sep 04: Boris Kay Fabian

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2021-January/158784.html__;!!OToaGQ!r3pUQLcMEcMshoU48cWDjfHtBWRks2Swz9pQwtDMKoo3m53wDNcug7V8bBopf7WSY5Vz4x4tn8oYAf0ENNaWULvBDw$

But I have not attempted to collate the available information about
“kayfabe” to create an article on this topic.
Garson

On Sun, Feb 26, 2023 at 9:55 AM Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/opinion/vince-mcmahon-wwe-trump-kayfabe.html__;!!OToaGQ!r3pUQLcMEcMshoU48cWDjfHtBWRks2Swz9pQwtDMKoo3m53wDNcug7V8bBopf7WSY5Vz4x4tn8oYAf0ENNYZ-uyrAw$
>
> [https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/02/23/multimedia/23-riesman-wbgt/23-riesman-wbgt-facebookJumbo.jpg__;!!OToaGQ!r3pUQLcMEcMshoU48cWDjfHtBWRks2Swz9pQwtDMKoo3m53wDNcug7V8bBopf7WSY5Vz4x4tn8oYAf0ENNbBz3vH_Q$ ]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/opinion/vince-mcmahon-wwe-trump-kayfabe.html__;!!OToaGQ!r3pUQLcMEcMshoU48cWDjfHtBWRks2Swz9pQwtDMKoo3m53wDNcug7V8bBopf7WSY5Vz4x4tn8oYAf0ENNYZ-uyrAw$ >
> Opinion | How the W.W.E. Explains What’s Happened to U.S. Politics<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/opinion/vince-mcmahon-wwe-trump-kayfabe.html__;!!OToaGQ!r3pUQLcMEcMshoU48cWDjfHtBWRks2Swz9pQwtDMKoo3m53wDNcug7V8bBopf7WSY5Vz4x4tn8oYAf0ENNYZ-uyrAw$ >
> Kayfabe — the knowledge that pro wrestling is fake — has a long and rich history in American entertainment. It also explains something deep about G.O.P. politics now.
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.nytimes.com__;!!OToaGQ!r3pUQLcMEcMshoU48cWDjfHtBWRks2Swz9pQwtDMKoo3m53wDNcug7V8bBopf7WSY5Vz4x4tn8oYAf0ENNYoDv2DBQ$
> A letter to the Times, Garson, with your finds of Boris K. Fabe et sim?
>
> sg
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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