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Topic: Palooka

Back on this date in 1927, for the second time within a year, Gene Tunney faced Jack Dempsey in a boxing ring. The last time the two men had met, Tunney had won the heavyweight championship title from Dempsey in a unanimous ten round decision. Their second match took a different turn. This was the evening of the famous Long Count, when a series of punches thrown by Dempsey in the seventh round floored Tunney. Dempsey hovered over Tunney, failing to follow the new rule that he move to a neutral corner for the referee's count. The referee waited to count, Tunney staggered to his feet, and the match continued. Tunney retained his championship and pugilistic history was made.

Another piece of pugilistic history made in that same era concerns palooka, the term for an inexperienced or incompetent boxer. Neither Tunney nor Dempsey could be described as a palooka, but the Joe Palooka cartoon strip—featuring a big, good-natured prize fighter, a defender of the little guy, according to his creator—had been hawked by cartoonist Ham Fisher for years by then.

So which came first, Fisher's gentle character or the word palooka? The first print appearance of palooka in the generic boxer sense dates to 1924. While cartoonist Ham Fisher first began drawing his creation around 1920, Joe Palooka did not appear widely in the funny pages until around 1930. So while Fisher helped popularize palooka, lexicographers do not consider him the source of the word.

Questions or comments? Write us at wftw@aol.com Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and Web sites including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.

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