Re: not butter, guns
Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Sat, 21 Aug 1999 00:52:53 -0400
At 5:46 PM -0700 on 8/20/99, you wrote:
> Wanker!
> LOL ~ senioreeta!
> Wanker is an awesome word -- what's the etymology of
> wanker? Is it etymology or am I talking about insects?
Bugs are entomology.
Wanker has a great etymology: as (according to the OED, 2nd ed.) "one
who masturbates," it is credited to P. Tempest in Lagis Lexicon 229,
"A man suspected of excessive masturbation is said to be suffering
from whankeris doomi." 1950 is the earliest citation. It
alternately appears as "an objectionable or contemptible person,"
credited (in 1972) to "A. Draper" in a book entitled "Death Penalty":
"Get out, you fucker," screamed a youth.... Another said, "You
wanker," and indulged in a masturbatory gesture."
OBSalinger: I don't think "wanker" would appear in a concordance of
JDS's works!
Now, *there's* a fascinating project, though I imagine it would run
afoul of copyright laws and would be denied permission by the author
even as a scholarly endeavor: a Salinger concordance. That is
something I would find infinitely useful, and hope that one day we
may be able to construct one. (Anyone need a dissertation project
and want to ask a few legal questions, hint, hint?)
My Shakespeare concordance, on a CD-ROM, brought no end of joy to a
friend who got to use it for a couple of hours....
--tim