[Ads-l] 86 speculation, anyone?

[Ben Zimmer]

And here's a Politifact piece, quoting me.

https://www.politifact.com/article/2025/may/16/James-Comey-86-47-meaning-violence/

HDAS cites a 1978 Los Angeles Times article as the earliest example of
"eighty-six" meaning "kill," and GDoS follows suit.

https://archive.org/details/randomhousehisto01ligh/page/700/mode/2up
https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/eaw7fwy

But a closer look at that article suggests some ambiguity:

---
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times-86ed/172499874/
Los Angeles Times, Mar. 15, 1978, p. 26, col. 3
When later informed by a reporter that official records showed Dial and
Miss Milazzo were married, Wells, one of his closest friends' expressed
mild surprise.
"At least it suggests that the police haven't 86ed (disposed of) him,"
Wells said. "But it still doesn't resolve the question of whether he was a
cop. We'd all like to know."
---

HDAS and GDoS quote this article but change the "disposed of" parenthetical
to "murdered." That's not necessarily implied by the quote. In any case,
more clear-cut examples of "eighty-six" meaning "kill" follow in the '80s.

--bgz

On Fri, May 16, 2025 at 4:32 PM Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:

> The NYT just put a piece up about this, quoting me, and Green's Dictionary
> of Slang:
>
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/05/16/us/trump-news#james-comey-trump-86-meaning
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
>
> On Fri, May 16, 2025 at 08:15:26PM +0000, Stephen Goranson wrote:
> > Comey kerfuffle
> >
> >
> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/16/8647-meaning-james-comey-instagram-trump
> >
>

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