[Ads-l] Antedating of "Whammy"

[Bonnie Taylor-Blake]

Last year I took a look at “whammy” and how it first appeared in a baseball
context, which gave rise to “whammy” in its current sense.

I’m reasonably certain that in ca. 1925 Pirates catcher Earl Smith had
something to do with its coinage or perhaps its application to a sort of
“casting spells” over opposing batters. (Note that “wammy” is a very early
spelling.)

https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2024-October/166066.html

“Wham,” as in a big hit, was certainly used by baseball writers before
“w[h]ammy” appeared ca. 1926, but it’s still unclear to me whether we can
pin “w[h]ammy” on “wham.” (I’ll note that I’ve found a few appearances of a
non-sports “wammy” with the meaning of “to marry” after its use with
respect to baseball. That’s a head-scratcher to me.)

I’m a little dug in on the thought that there may be a buried non-wham
explanation for how we got “w[h]ammy,” so I will respectfully and
good-naturedly wonder about your latest find, Fred.

— Bonnie

On Sat, Nov 22, 2025 at 9:44 AM Shapiro, Fred <
00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> whammy (OED 1940, Green 1939)
>
> 1925 Cleveland Press 21 Aug. 10/1 (Newspapers.com)  WH-A-M-M-Y !  When B.
> D. Jones went to his bakery ... to light the ovens and preapare for
> business, he was a trifle astonished to see the oven roof ascend to the
> ceiling and the glass fall out of the front windows.
>
> 1927 Pittsburgh Gazette Times 14 May 9/2 (Newspapers.com)  I guess he has
> a "whammy" ball or something.  He makes you go after it whether you want to
> or not.
>
> 1929 Standard Union (Brooklyn, N.Y.) 4 Apr. 18/1 (Newspapers.com)  For lo,
> these many years - eleven, to be exact --the Phillies have been trying to
> shake off the whammy which has kept them in ninth place.
>
> NOTE: The 1927 citation above is reminiscent of the 1912 citations for
> "jazz."
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
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