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

Tue Jan 16 21:27:30 UTC 2024

Garson does it again. The  "John B. Flack" ad agency seems a more likely
allusive origin than Gene Flack. Ad agencies are composed of flacks and
flack-like individuals.

How prominent was the Flack agency?

JL

JL

On Tue, Jan 16, 2024 at 3:58 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>
wrote:

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

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