Thank you for laying that down so I could pick it up.
I can, like, totally dig that, daddy-o.
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That comic made me howl.
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moar beatnik fun
and the TV pilot
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I can dig it.
… aaand there’s a “hipster”.
I’m not sure that’s how -nik works though. As with lots of Yiddish/Yinglish meaning changes with tone and context.
Wow, I forgot he was once young…
I thought the “nik” in beatnik was inspired by Sputnik.
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The word “beatnik” was coined by Herb Caen in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 2, 1958. Caen coined the term by adding the Russian suffix -nik to the Beat Generation. Caen’s column with the word came six months after the launch of Sputnik I. Objecting to the term, Allen Ginsberg wrote to the New York Times to deplore “the foul word beatnik”, commenting, “If beatniks and not illuminated Beat poets overrun this country, they will have been created not by Kerouac but by industries of mass communication which continue to brainwash man.”
Beatnik From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ayup, apparently so.
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(And to @aLynHall) even if the -nik here is tied to Sputnik the basic construction would still be Yinglish, something that Ginsberg would have recognized.
But did the coiner of the word, Herb Caen, speak Yiddish? If he did, then Yiddish is relevant. Otherwise, I’m not so certain.
ETA: And before you say it, yes, I’m aware he was Jewish. Doesn’t mean he spoke Yiddish though.
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As an Ashkenazi Jew of his age, exposure to Yiddish is almost a certainty. However, note that I’ve used the word Yinglish (term attributed to author Leo Rosten) which describes words/constructions/phrases which have entered American speech and writing from Yiddish.
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