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Re: Corky (derivation)
I'm not familiar with the comic strip, but a corker is, colloquially, someone or something absolutely top-notch. Just what people tend to think about their new babies.I was at school with someone with the surname Kork who was known as Korky; that could be another possibility. And I also once knew a man whose surname was Thorpe: his nickname was also Corky which he thought was a half-rhyme for Thorpy. His given names were irrelevant!
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Thanks for pointing that out. "Corker" may be what the authors of the strip were thinking about back in 1928. However, that wouldn't be obvious to most people in the USA today because I think "corker" is almost obsolete as an everyday slang term in this country. The only recent examples of its use I could quickly find on line were from Australia or the UK, and the Princeton online dictionary calls it "dated slang". :)So thanks again for pointing it out.
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