Today's word-of-the-day on Dictionary.com was wonk, and it reminded me that--years ago--I'd published a little op-ed piece about that word in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Some online searching located the piece from 13 September 1992. (I was teaching at Harmon Middle School in Aurora in 1992.) And--here 'tis, fresh from the days when wonk was just entering the public vocabulary:
On
The Trail Of The Elusive Wonk, As In, 'Boy, Is That Guy A Wonk!' Why Not
Pedant?Defined As "A Person Who Makes An Excessive Use Of Learning."
By DANIEL DYER
POSTED: September 13, 1992
PHILADELPHIA iNQUIRER
I learned a new word
this summer. Wonk.
Wonk??
It was during the
Democratic National Convention that several network floor reporters used the
term to refer to Gov. Clinton, usually appending it to policy, as in
"Governor Clinton is a policy wonk."
They acted as if
everyone knew the word.
Wonk??
Then I came across the
word in print. In an article in the July 27 New Republic, Sidney Blumenthal
used it: "Bill Clinton can talk the talk and walk the walk, but he is
never quite the perfect wonk."
The following week,
Blumenthal's article about Gov. Clinton and Sen. Gore was headlined: "The
Wonks."
Although I'd read the
word, I didn't really know exactly what it meant.
(It takes no act of supreme
cerebration, however, to infer that it is a near-cousin to "nerd" or
"geek.")
Being something, I
suppose, of a word-wonk, I scurried to The Random House Dictionary of English
Language to confirm my suspicion - but found only ''wonky," a British slang
word meaning "shaky, or wobbly."
Unfazed, I consulted The
Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Only a single 1918 usage of
the word: "nervous, upset."
Mildly daunted, I tried
A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (8th ed.). Two entries:
* "yellow dog. A
term commonly applied by foreigners to the ordinary chinese dog." Surely
the network floor reporters and Blumenthal were not calling Clinton a yellow
dog? This was an insult more Buchananian, or Gingrichy.
* "a useless
seaman; a very inexperienced Naval cadet." Hmmmm. The governor, as I
recall, elected not to serve in the military. Wrong definition.
Finally, I consult the
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions which defines
"wonk" as "an earnest student."
So, if Gov. Clinton is a
"policy wonk", it means he is a serious student of public policy who
is excessively fond of talking about it.
But why wonk?
Why not pedant? Defined
as "A person who makes an excessive or inappropriate show of
learning," pedant is a perfectly serviceable word here - as anyone who
heard Clinton's 52-minute acceptance speech can testify.
And "policy
pedant" has even more alliterative appeal than "policy wonk."
Ah, but "wonk"
carries with it the power of that hard terminal consonant so characteristic of
other celebrated four-letter words.
In support of this
hypothesis, two other slang dictionaries I consulted agreed that its origin may
be "wanker," a 19th century slang word meaning ''masturbator."
I doubt that. Although
it is conceivable that wonks, like wankers, provide pleasure only to
themselves, I suspect my colleague was right when I asked him if he knew the
origin of the word: "Sure," he sighed. "It's know spelled backwards."
Well.
Whatever the origin, the
word has now been broadcast into millions of homes, and the governor,
previously known as "Slick Willie," may now be called "Willie
Wonka" - although, as far as I know, he has no interest in chocolate
factories other than consuming massive quantities of their output.
No doubt we will soon
see the word used in all wonks of life: Wonkify, crypto-wonk, pseudo-wonk,
wonkism, wonkophobia, wonkopolis, wonkdom and wonkicide are just a few the
language could accommodate.
Let not this exercise in
wonkology end without consideration of two other excellent forms of the word:
"wonkette" (a wonk-in-training), and "wonkey" (a Democrat
wonk).
Doubtless the final
assimilation of "wonk" into our common vocabulary will be the
appearance of bumper stickers: HONK IF YOU'RE A WONK!
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