>The other day, someone gave as the origin of the word
"dick" as in
>detective as coming from Dick Tracy. Not close and no
cigar. "dick" in
>the sense of detective, comes from the word
'detective' itself,
>shortened and altered.
>
>Tracy wasn't a detective anyway, he was a
cop.
The OED2e offers this as the sixth definition of
"dick":
>dick, n.6 slang.
>[? Arbitrary contraction of detective n.]
>A detective; a policeman.
>1908 J. M. Sullivan Crim. Slang. 8 Dick, a cop,
detective (Canadian slan=
g).
>1912 A. H. Lewis Apaches of N.Y. 95 Still, those
plain-clothes dicks did=
not despair.
>1924 Amer. Speech I. 151/2 =91Dick=92 and =91bull=92
and =91John Law=92 =
have become established as names for the police.
>1928 E. Wallace Gunner xxix. 234 They=92d persuaded a
couple of dicks=96=
detectives=96to watch the barriers.
>1956 J. D. Carr P. Butler for Defence xiii. 140
Plain-clothes C.I.D. men=
..are currently known as bogeys, busies, dicks, and
scotches.
J M Sullivan's 1908 _Criminal Slang_ piques my
curiosity.
--=20
Ned Fleming
#
# To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to
majordomo@icomm.ca.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.