[Ads-l] 86 speculation, anyone?

Fri May 16 22:42:43 UTC 2025

Thanks to all the thread participants. Apologies to Ben for not seeing
his post which was placed into my spam folder. Ben performed great
work double-checking the 1978 citation in the  Los Angeles Times.

I think the evidence provided by the "assassinate" entry in the 1978
edition of "The Synonym Finder (Completely Revised)" is still solid.

Peter's 1974 citation about the confusion between "deep-six" and
"eighty-six" is intriguing and valuable.

Also, the 1968 wordplay might be pertinent. The phrase "the Good Lord
eighty-sixed him from the bubbling fountain of life" has dual
interpretations: "The Good Lord kicked him out of the bubbling soda
fountain of life" and "the Good Lord terminated his existence".

Garson

On Fri, May 16, 2025 at 5:48 PM Peter Reitan <pjreitan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> A 1974 letter to the editor suggests "86" had been used in television crime dramas to mean killed.   Newspapers.com
>
> https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-commercial-appeal/172516572/
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Sent: Friday, May 16, 2025 2:28:40 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: 86 speculation, anyone?
>
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
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> Subject:      Re: 86 speculation, anyone?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
> > The NYT just put a piece up about this, quoting me, and Green's Dictionar=
> y of Slang:
>
> Excellent work, Jesse. Here is a different stable link to the New York
> Times article:
> https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/us/politics/james-comey-trump-86-meaning=
> .html
>
> Here is the link to Green's Dictionary of Slang, again:
> https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/eaw7fwy
>
> Barry Popik examined the 86 slang term in the soda-jerk, restaurant,
> and bar domain, and Popik found a great 1933 column by Walter Winchell
> which stated: "Eighty-six" means all out of it
>
>  "86" (not from Chumley=E2=80=99s or Empire State Building)
> https://barrypopik.com/blog/86_not_from_chumleys_or_empire_state_building
>
> Ben Zimmer elucidated the topic in a 2018 article in the Atlantic:
>  A Restaurant =E2=80=98Eighty-Sixed=E2=80=99 Sarah Huckabee Sanders. What D=
> oes That Mean?
> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/06/a-restaurant-eighty-sixed=
> -sarah-huckabee-sanders-what-does-that-mean/563588/
>
> The earliest citation in Green's Dictionary of Slang (GDoS) for the
> murder sense is from Jonathan Lighter's wonderful Historical
> Dictionary of American Slang (HDAS) on page 700 and 701 of volume 1:
>
> [Begin excerpt from GDoS website]
> 2. (US) to kill, murder; to execute judicially.
> 1978 [US]  in L.A. Times 15 Mar. I 26: At least it suggests that the
> police haven=E2=80=99t 86ed (murdered) him [HDAS].
> [End excerpt from GDoS website]
>
> I attempted to antedate the murder/kill/terminate life sense, and I
> found a 1968 citation about J. Maurice Treener who developed
> Alka-Seltzer. When Treener died, a columnist in Newsday wrote: "When
> the Good Lord eighty-sixed him from the bubbling fountain of life".
> This is ambiguous, but the sense "terminated his life" is a natural
> reading, I think.
>
> Date: July 22, 1968
> Newspaper: Newsday
> Newspaper Location: Suffolk Edition
> Article: Here's One for J. Maurice Treener
> Author: Robert Mayer
> Quote Page 4B, Column 1
> Database: Newspapers.com
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> The size of a man's obituary is a measure of greatness
> That society bestows on a man on the day of his lateness;
> And in that connection it seems to me it was one of  journalism's biggest g=
> affes
> To send to his final reward the man who invented Alka-Seltzer in the
> rather stingy confines of two little paragraphs.
>
> I never heard of Mr. Treneer until that day of mortal strife
> When the Good Lord eighty-sixed him from the bubbling fountain of life,
> But many is the day that I and my family and friends  have drunk to his hea=
> lth,
> [End excerpt]
>
> The Internet Archive has a 1978 edition of "The Synonym Finder" which
> has multiple entries covering different senses of eighty-six including
> assassinate. In the excerpt below "Sl." means slang.
>
> Year: 1978
> Book Title: The Synonym Finder (Completely Revised)
> Editor in Chief: Laurence Urdang
> Managing Editor: Nancy LaRouche
> Quote Page 71
> https://archive.org/details/synonymfinder0000roda/page/n3/mode/2up?q=3D%22e=
> ighty-six%22
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> assassinate, v. 1. kill, slay, morganize, poison, do to death,
> liquidate, blot or wipe out, ...
> Sl. off, hit, zap, waste, croak, eighty six, take off, rub out, bump
> off, knock off, ...
> [End excerpt]
>
> Garson
>
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