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

[Ben Zimmer]

On a somewhat related note, I wonder if a wrestler who went by "Joe
Gibrony" in Detroit in 1960 was playing off "jabroney"/"jabroni" (a la "Joe
Palooka"), in which case it would be the earliest evidence of that epithet
being used in the wrestling world:

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/117780177/joe-gibrony/

Further discussion in this Twitter thread following up on my recent WSJ
column on "jabroni":

https://twitter.com/bgzimmer/status/1621278083201261569

--Ben

On Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 8:05 AM Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:

> 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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