On January 9, 2018 at 9:00pm GMT, the Oxford English Dictionary entered the word jabroni into their grand log of linguistic posterity. My initial excitement quickly faded into what I can only describe with an Office Space gif—
—when I realized the OED had completely phoned in their etymology, which conflates two words with a glaring missing link and neglects crucial, well known instances of its use.
It’s readily apparent that the whoever’s job it was to finalize this definition was not a wrestling fan, because this is a curiously inaccurate and circuitous definition.
First, the OED plays up jiboney (in numerous spellings) as a more antiquated version of jabroni. Jiboney is a colloquial Italian-American word that is of uncertain origin and was used mostly on recent immigrants, to create their primary definition of jabroni. The OED’s first five usages are of this jiboney word:
U.S. slang and colloq. (derogatory, often used mockingly). A stupid, objectionable, or ridiculous man; a loser, a knuckle-head.
I would propose that this is a jiboney and does not capture the context or nuance of jabroni. I don’t see any indication of how we know the two should be connected as the same word. The knuckle-head definition includes a secondary definition specific for wrestling: “In recent use also applied spec. to a professional wrestler who deliberately or habitually loses (cf. quots. 1997, 2000).”
Now, I would say it’s highly likely that the Iron Sheik knew jiboney, heard one of its variances such as jibone or jadroney in usage when he immigrated to the U.S., and that he made up his now version suitable for wrestling. I can imagine the Iron Sheik playing with words the way jiboney users did and making up one that fit into the jargon of wrestling. I don’t know how the OED goes about deciding what is its own word and what is a specific variation of a word, but I contend from a critical standpoint that jabroni has very much been established as its own word with separate usages and meaning. I also must point out that the origin of our jabroni is clearly known. It is widely known that jabroni in its contemporary form was coined by the Iron Sheik. This is common knowledge among wrestling enthusiasts. And while jabroni may in fact be etymologically related to jaboney, I’m fairly certain there is another word integral to its etymology: jobber.
The only one who knows for sure whether these two words stem from the same origin is the Iron Sheik, and he didn’t answer my @. That’s okay, I didn’t expect such an enigma to be one to fess up an etymology. He might not even remember why he did it at this point. But even a small amount of inquiry would discover that the Iron Sheik MUST be credited for the early usage instances of jabroni. The OED begins the jabroni usage with a rather arcane and insignificant 1997 instance on a Usenet group (of all things!) by an outfit I’ve never heard of called Southern States Wrestling, who apparently had a stable called the “Jabroni World Order”. This random moment from 1997 was clearly insignificant in the light of the Iron Sheik’s many usages, and he was having his heyday in the 1980’s. But even a quick jaunt across YouTube discovers that in fact, The Rock—who is featured in the OED’s sixth instance with somebody in a 2000 Mail on Sunday article talking about witty epithets such as his “candyass jabroni”—credits Iron Sheik with the word’s coinage:
To further complicate the matter, the wrestling-specific subcategory for the definition, in fact refers to a jobber, not jabroni. “A professional wrestler who deliberately or habitually loses.” This is a jobber. It’s not even an entirely accurate definition of a jobber in my opinion, but it’s definitely trying to define jobber. A jabroni is a further evolution of this word for sure: jabroni becomes a rude nickname to call somebody you want to belittle. The usage of jabroni and jobber are entirely inside the subculture of professional wrestling, which I would argue makes it in fact closer to jargon that the OED’s categories of slang and colloquialism. Jargon is the language of the inside, impenetrable by those who do not share interest in the craft of a subject area.
Compared to the first five instances of jaboney, there are only three instances of our jabroni. The Usenet group, this Mail on Sunday article, and then what looks like a sportswriter in the Greeley Tribune (of all things!), talking about how some team’s roster was dealing with a staff of “buffoons and jabronis.” (We can tell this sports writer is a wrestling fan. He’s cutting some kind of sportswriter promo. This doesn’t mean the word is crossing over into broader sporting use. It’s a reference to wrestling, that’s why he’s using the word.)
The OED doesn’t site instances from the Iron Sheik or The Rock, who explicitly explained what he knew of the etymology in that YouTube video. In our Twitter conversation, Spectacle of Excess contributor Tom Breen pointed out another missing usage of note from 2011:
Essays could be written about that tweet and its layers of irony. Just look at that thing.
So that’s my primary beef with the OED’s definition of jabroni. They’ve got it all jumbled, and they gave a completely arcane series of usages. Bless them for looking into it, though.
In Part II of this topic, I will explain how the OED’s definition is oddly circuitous and imprecise by technical writing standards.
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