[Ads-l] shoobies/shoebies (1961)

[Ben Zimmer]

"Shoobie" is a term used in the southern part of the Jersey Shore for
tourists coming from out of town, typically day-trippers. (They're called
"bennies" further north.) As I discussed in a 2010 On Language column, it's
assumed that "shoobies" are so called as a short form of "shoeboxers,"
referring to the shoebox lunches that excursionists from the Philadelphia
area would pack on weekend trips to the Shore.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/magazine/08FOB-onlanguage-t.html

In the column I mentioned some research by Barry Popik on the term. Barry
found a recollection by Edward Brown about "shoobies" in Ocean City dating
to the summer of 1952 in "Shore Chronicles: Diaries and Travelers' Tales
from the Jersey Shore" (1999). But as Barry noted in an ADS-L post, that
was probably written retrospectively.
https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2006-June/060184.html

Barry also turned up a 1962 example of "shoobies" in print, in an AP
article about college students going to Ocean City.
https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2006-June/060063.html

Clipped here:
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-record-shoobies/124119936/
Daily Record (Long Branch, NJ), Aug 6, 1962, p. 8, col. 4

Here's an earlier example in another article about college kids in Ocean
City -- it also makes the link to "shoeboxers" explicit.

---
https://www.newspapers.com/article/press-of-atlantic-city-shoebees/124144111/
Atlantic City Press, July 30, 1961, p. 16, col. 7
These are the "shoeboxers" so named because they just come here for the
weekends. [...] Between 12 and 6 a.m. the "shoebees" leave the city and the
regulars remain.
---

Here are a few articles from the AC Press in the '30s on "shoeboxers":
https://www.newspapers.com/article/press-of-atlantic-city-shoe-boxers/124078697/
(Atlantic City Press, Aug 30, 1931, p. 22, col. 6)
https://www.newspapers.com/article/press-of-atlantic-city-shoe-boxers/124078804/
(Atlantic City Press, Oct 29, 1933, p. 18, col. 7)
https://www.newspapers.com/article/press-of-atlantic-city-shoeboxers/124078632/
(Atlantic City Press,  Apr 4, 1937, p. 8, col. 7)

And going way back, here's an article on the "shoe-box brigade" in 1915:
https://www.newspapers.com/article/evening-public-ledger-shoe-box-brigade/124079733/
(Philadelphia Evening Ledger, July 15, 1915, p. 14, col. 5)

--bgz

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