Date: Tue, 9 Dec 1997 18:49:17 -0500

From: Fred Shapiro fred.shapiro[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALE.EDU

Subject: Re: Gravegate; Judas Q. Priest; Sidewalk Santas; Glass Ceiling,

YAP(Yuppie)



On Sat, 6 Dec 1997, Bapopik wrote:



The earliest "yuppie" citations are in January 1984, but if this article

appeared in the March 1984 monthly, it was on the stands in February 1984 and

written in either January 1984 or December 1983.



In my article, "Yuppies, Yumpies, Yaps, and Computer-Assisted Lexicology,"

American Speech 61 (1986): 139-46, I traced "yuppie" back to a usage by

Bob Greene in the Chicago Tribune, 23 March 1983. Greene's usage is

usually said to be the first appearance in print.



Jesse Sheidlower, however, has sent me this earlier citation from the

Random House files:



1982 L.A. Times 24 Oct. I. 1 The young woman voter -- the female

"yuppie," as Chicago pollsters refer to "young urban professionals" in

their town.



A still earlier occurrence has also come to my attention subsequent to my

writing my article:



1982 Joseph Epstein in Commentary June 61 His [John Irving's] novels

exert their greatest pull on those people who are undecided about growing

up; they are college-educated, getting on and even getting up in the

world, but with a bit of the hippie-dippie counterculture clinging to them

still -- yuppies, they have been called, the initials YUP standing for

young urban professionals.



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