> <snip>
> As a guess, perhaps from clunker, in turn from clinker. [MW]
> <snip>
>
> Following Peter Ciccariello, I'd like it to be lunkhead < lunker = big.
> Alas
> the evidence just isn't there. I can get lunker back to a bear in the
> 1880s
> but no further...
>
> CW
Where the *hell* do you get this from, Christopher? References, please.
<g>
The OED gives "lunker" -- an animal [etc] -- as first cited 1912. Green in
Cassell/Slang echoes, and adds [1970s+] "a delapidated car". Both are (a)
too late to be relevant, and (b) USAmerican.
Guessing, "lunkhead" is a (white) American coinage, based on a series of
segues on an established pattern of <SOMETHING+"head"> -- blockhead,
clodpate, dunderhead, et alia. (Earlier established English usages.)
Crossed with phonaesthetic influence.
Bloody diffilcult to track "lunk" itself back before mid-1850, even at the
earliest. [Odd that, but.]
That's what I was going to say tomorrow (in somewhat more academic and
referenced terms).
Over to you.
Robin
(Martin's "clunker" would obviously link to Green's 1970+ "lunker". R.)
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