[Ads-l] Antedating of the Radical Spelling "Amerika" / "Amerikkka"

[Shapiro, Fred]

I have long been entranced by the word "disambiguate," and this apparently led me in a weird direction.

Fred Shapiro

________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Jonathan Lighter <00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, October 9, 2025 8:37 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Antedating of the Radical Spelling "Amerika" / "Amerikkka"

"Disambiguous/ disambiguously" appear in neither OED nor MW.  Nor does
Google find them on the 'Net.

GB and IA afford a few exx.

 JL

On Wed, Oct 8, 2025 at 10:29 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <
00001aa1be50b751-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> Here is an instance of "Amerika" (with a single k) in the desired
> sense, I think. This antedates the November-December 1969 citation in
> the OED.
>
> Date: July 18, 1969
> Newspaper: The Militant
> Newspaper Location: New York, New York
> Article: Black steel workers organize
> Author: Derrick Morrison
> Quote Page 3, Column 4
> Database: ProQuest
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> Upon receiving this information, the police chief, Donald Pomerleau,
> met with the militants and told them that they would be arrested and
> charged with inciting to riot if they used a bull-horn to publicize
> the dog attack.
> So goes justice in Amerika.
> [End excerpt]
>
> Garson
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 8, 2025 at 5:31 PM Shapiro, Fred
> <00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
> >
> > In the 1960s and early 1970s, American leftist radicals often spelled
> "America" as "Amerika" or "Amerikkka."  "Amerika" was a reference to the
> German spelling, "Amerikkka" was a reference to the Ku Klux Klan.. It is
> difficult to search disambiguously for the English-language "Amerika" in
> online databases.
> >
> > The OED's citations for "Amerika" begin with Tom Hayden in
> November-December 1969.  The earliest cite for the spelling "Amerikkka" is
> dated 1970.  The OED's definition is "American society viewed as racist,
> fascist, or oppressive, esp. by African Americans."
> >
> > A search in JSTOR yields an 1969 occurrence of "Amerikkka" in the
> Berkeley Barb, in an article about Black Panther leader Bobby Seale:
> >
> > 1969 Berkeley Barb 7-13 Mar. 6/2  Seale's statement to the press
> contained a lot of heavy ideological rap.  He claimed that the larger issue
> in the strike at Cal is the University's role of "developing the technical
> tools to sustain and defend AmeriKKKa, the haven of oppressive capitalism
> and imperialist exploitation throughout the world."
> >
> > A search in Newspapers.com pulls up a strange early usage.  The
> World-News newspaper (Roanoke, Va.) ran a small item in its 21 Nov. 1923
> issue (page 6, column 8).  In its entirety it consisted of the following:
> >
> > REVISING SPELLING.
> > AmeriKKKa.
> > Konstitution.
> > Okkklahoma.
> > KKKansas.
> > KKKanada.
> >
> > It is not clear whether the newspaper item is mocking the Klan or
> supporting it.  Elsewhere in the issue the paper does not seem to be
> anti-Klan.
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
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