[Ads-l] Scam etymology

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Widely syndicated gossip columnist Earl Wilson suggested that "scam"
was "Hollywood slang" and offered his readers a very different
explanation in 1949.

Date: May 18, 1949
Newspaper: Evening Courier
Newspaper Location: Camden, New Jersey
Article: It Happened Last Night
Author: Earl Wilson
Quote Page 35, Column 5
Database: Newspapers.com

https://www.newspapers.com/article/evening-courier-scam/199342664/

[Begin excerpt]
"WHAT'S THE SCAM?" Frank said to me.
(Scam's Hollywood slang for "deal," "plot," "news," etc.)
"That's what I want to know," I said.
[End excerpt]

Garson O'Toole


On Wed, Jun 10, 2026 at 8:45 PM Ben Zimmer
<00001aae0710f4b7-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> Green's Dictionary of Slang has this related sense of the verb "scam":
>
> ---
> https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/ffxh2sa
> 4. (US campus, also _scam on_) to go in search of and look over the
> opposite sex for casual sex.
> 1985 Eble _Campus Sl._ Oct. 9: scam -- to check out [...] Let’s go to the
> pit and do some scamming on the guys.
> 1992 D. Burke _Street Talk 2_ 2: I can’t believe you’re scamming on that
> goob!
> 1996 Eble _Sl. and Sociability_ 51: College students, who are perennially
> preoccupied with the quest for a partner for romance or sex, _cruise_, _put
> it in cruise mode_, _check it out_, _scam_, _scope_, or _troll_.
> 2004 T. Fey _Mean Girls_ [movie script] You do not come to a party at my
> house with Gretchen and then scam on some poor, innocent girl [...] three
> days later.
> ---

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