[Ads-l] Etymology of Flack (Corrected Posting)

Tue Jan 16 20:57:33 UTC 2024

Fascinating topic. The Walter Winchell discussion of "flack" in
January 1939 is intriguing. Here is a link to my message containing
that citation back in 2013.

https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2013-March/125973.html

The OED has an entry for the verb form of flack.

[Begin excerpt]
flack VERB 2
North American colloquial.
1. intransitive. To act as a press agent or promoter (for a person);
hence, in extended use, to disseminate favourable publicity or
information; to proselytize.
2. transitive. To promote or speak in favour of (a person or thing),
to ‘sell’; to retail or disseminate (information, etc.) to this end.
[End excerpt]

The first OED citation given for the intransitive sense is dated 1966,
and the first OED citation for the transitive sense is dated 1975.

Here is a 1934 citation for the transitive sense.

Date: November 20, 1934
Periodical: Variety, Los Angeles, California
Section: Times Square: CHATTER; Article: Hollywood
Quote Page 61, Column 5

[Begin excerpt]
Fox has reaped Jack Mulcahy, ex-advance man for George White, from his
orange grove to flack the 'Scandals' unit at the Sheehan lot.
[End excerpt]

Here is a 1935 citation for the intransitive sense.

Date: September 4, 1935
Periodical: Variety, Los Angeles, California
Section: Times Square: CHATTER; Article: Hollywood
Quote Page 61, Column 1

[Begin excerpt]
Jack Lewis, former Hays office p. a., flacking for ad agency.
[End excerpt]

I decided to explore the verb form because of the following claim
about the origin of "flack".

Date: Summer 2006
Journal: Public Relations Quarterly; Volume 51 Number 2
Article: PR's 'Implausible Deniabilities'
Author: Wes Pederson
Start Page 3, Quote Page 4, Column 2

[Begin excerpt]
You probably think "flack" derives from the word "flak," short for a
German antiaircraft gun (and the shrapnel it dispensed in air in World
War II.). Not so. It originated in the early years of the last century
when Variety magazine, recognizing the outstanding ability of Gene
Flack in promoting films, began saluting his skills by using
"flacking" instead of "publicizing."
[End excerpt]

Yet, it appears that the noun form preceded the verb form. The
snippets posted by Fred appeared in 1933, and they look great, but it
would be nice to see the full context to make certain that they are
not using Flack as a last name. Snippets can be garbled and can skip
words.

Apparently, the snippets appeared in Daily Variety instead of Weekly
Variety because I have not been able to find the corresponding
citations within the limited databases I can access. The database at
variety.com contains Daily Variety, but it is expensive, and I do not
have access to it.

Here are some later citations for "flack" as a noun in 1934.

Date: June 19, 1934
Periodical: Variety
Periodical Location: Los Angeles, California
Section: Pictures
Article: Debs With Pic Yen Tilt Horn Of Plenty for Blurb Buildups
Article Continuation Title: Deb's Pic Yen
Start Page 3, Quote Page 36, Column 6

[Begin excerpt]
Flacks at Radio studio will tell you that Hazel Forbes has so many
potatoes that her weekly stipend is donated to worthy charities. And
that's what sizzles the Hollywood mob. They feel that she's taking
some poor kid's job away from her and that it ain't right.
[End excerpt]

Date: September 11, 1934
Periodical: Variety, Los Angeles, California
Section: Literati
Article: Bang Up Newspaper Rivalry
Quote Page 57, Column 1

[Begin excerpt]
Francis Lauffer of the Citizen and Joe Mills for the State Journal
were the competitors. Both had come in on the same plane with the
singing actress. They had the studio flacks in a sweat getting stills,
and in a Solomon spot as to how to divide them.
[End excerpt]

There are instances of the name Flack in Variety between 1930 and
1933. Here are three examples.

Date: January 26, 1932
Periodical: Variety, Los Angeles, California
Section: Times Square: CHATTER
Article: New Haven
Quote Page 47, Column 2

[Begin excerpt]
Looked like old times with Leo Flack's bald conk around the Paramount.
[End excerpt]

Date: June 13, 1933
Periodical: Variety, Los Angeles, California
Section: RADIO CHATTER
Article: East
Quote Page 36, Column 4

[Begin excerpt]
Thomas B. Robinson, merchandizing visualizer for WSYR, Syracuse. N.
Y., since its affiliation with NBC, has resigned to join the John B.
Flack general advertising agency here.
[End excerpt]

Date: July 4, 1933
Periodical: Variety
Periodical Location: Los Angeles, California
Section: Variety House Reviews
Article: Million Dollar, L. A.
Quote Page 15, Column 5

[Begin excerpt]
Alvarado and Jean, ballroom dancers, follow, revealing class. During a
costume change Julita Conin, Spanish warbler, fills in with a combo
Spanish-American song that fits in oke. Flack Bros., xylophonists,
play classical and pop numbers with precision and have no trouble
registering.
[End excerpt]

Here is an excerpt from a 1970 book presenting an attempt to trace flack.

Date: 1970 Copyright
Book: The Language of Journalism: A Glossary of Print-Communications Terms
Author: Ruth Kimball Kent
Quote Page 14

[Begin excerpt]
The origin of FLACK, for press agent, seems impossible to track down.
The American dictionaries have only a question mark for etymology, and
the slang dictionaries give no clue. The only one to make an attempt
is Mencken, who says.

Variety calls press agents flacks, a World War II term for
antiaircraft fire . . .

The connection seems tenuous, and etymologists apparently steer clear
of this hypothesis. It could just as likely have come from the
dialectal English flack, (perhaps now archaic) meaning "to flap or
flutter," as given in the Oxford English and Century dictionaries.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Mon, Jan 15, 2024 at 4:18 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> I see a column in the Cincinnati Enquirer, 22 Jan. 1939, by some guy named Walter Winchell, who I think was somewhat knowledgeable about the entertainment world and the media.  Winchell wrote: "Variety, which is trying to coin 'Flack' as a synonym for press agent (without much luck) might like to know it was born in the Chicago offices of Gene Flack, a film publicist."
>
> Fred Shapiro

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