[Ads-l] Bronx cheer (September 1921)

[Peter Reitan]

A Damon Runyon wire-service piece on the Giants-Yankees World Series, that shows up in the San Antonio Evening News and San Francisco Examiner on October 8, 1921,  relates that when the "Bambino" struck out in the fifth, "the crowd gave him the well known - in fact, the famous, Bronx huzza, otherwise the 'razz'."

https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-san-francisco-examiner/144416082/

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Sent: Friday, March 29, 2024 2:58:23 AM
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Subject: Re: Bronx cheer (September 1921)

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Great work as always, Bonnie.

JL

On Thu, Mar 28, 2024 at 9:34=E2=80=AFPM Bonnie Taylor-Blake <b.taylorblake@=
gmail.com>
wrote:

> OED has a 1929 use of "Bronx cheer" as its earliest example of the
> expression.
>
> HDAS betters that with a sighting from 1927.
>
> Barry Popik has pushed this back to 19 October 1921, however.
>
> https://barrypopik.com/new_york_city/entry/bronx_cheer
>
> Here's a slightly earlier appearance.
>
> -------------
>
> The Jewel of Georgia got the old familiar Bronx cheer when he came to
> bat for the first time in the first inning. Tyrus would probably be
> sadly disappointed were he not so greeted in New York. [Damon Runyon,
> "Yanks Beat Tigers by 4 to 2 Count and Go Back into Lead as Indians
> Lose," New York (New York) American, 19 September 1921, p. 8. "Tyrus,"
> of course, is Ty Cobb. Via Geneaologybank.com.]
>
> -------------
>
> No raspberries from me if anyone shares still earlier examples.
>
> I should mention that Green's Dictionary of Slang has two seemingly
> very early citations, one from 1908 and another from 1911.
>
> https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/2z2oc6i
>
> But I'm afraid that these are misdated: Google Books's metadata are
> wrong. These texts appeared in 1939 and 1941, respectively.
> (Publication details are below.)
>
> -- Bonnie
>
> The first is on p. 41 of _Get Organized: Stories and Poems about Trade
> Union People_, ed. Alan Calmer. New York: International Publishers,
> 1939. It's in a short story by Theodore T. Kaufman. (This URL will
> kind of work. You may need to search for "Bronx cheer," however.
> https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=3Duc1.b3922420&seq=3D130&q1=3Dbron=
x+cheer
> )
>
> The second is on p. 43 of William Hawley Davis's "Familiar Figurative
> English Expressions," _Stanford Studies in Language and Literature_, a
> collection edited by Hardin Craig and published in 1941, on the
> fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Stanford University.
> (
> https://www.google.com/books/edition/STANFORD_STUDIES_IN_LANGUAGE_AND_LIT=
ERAT/AINxbYO1ZqQC?hl=3Den&gbpv=3D1&dq=3D%22stanford+studies%22+%22bronx+che=
er%22&pg=3DPA43&printsec=3Dfrontcover
> )
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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