Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: RARA-AVIS Digest V2 #328

Ned Fleming (ned@networksplus.net)
Tue, 16 Jun 1998 00:23:03 GMT On Mon, 15 Jun 1998 12:29:37 -0400, Lawrence R. (Dick) Tartow, M.D.
wrote:

>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
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