# Earlier slang word for yuppie-type person? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 13, 2005, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824 "2005-02-13T03:11:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![VernWinterbottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c67d28/32.png) [@VernWinterbottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VernWinterbottom)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/1 "2005-02-13T03:11:01Z")
Was there an earlier term used to describe the stereotypical young urban professional before the term yuppie came into being in the '80s? What might have been a mildly derogatory term applied to say Rob and Laura Petrie in their day? Or how would a working class male who grew up in the '50s drinking Naragansett beer (Howdie, neighbor. . . Have a 'Gansett) refer to Mark Harmon standing by a mountain stream pitching Coors? ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/2 "2005-02-13T03:22:07Z")
I remember two terms that were popular in the '60s: “organization man” and “grey flannel suit.” Both of these terms referred to the upwardly-mobile businessman, the kind of guy who moved his family to the suburbs and bought an Edsel. ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/3 "2005-02-13T03:53:05Z")
Dork or dandy, depending on your point of view. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/4 "2005-02-13T04:03:34Z")
Another old word (this one is still around): “wonk.” In the '60s I remember hearing this word applied to hard-working white-collar guys, the real go-getters who put in the extra hours and sucked up to management. These days a wonk is more of an academic grind, I think. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/5 "2005-02-13T05:28:47Z")
> [@pinkfreud](#): > > Another old word (this one is still around): “wonk.” Which is “know” backwards, incidentally. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/6 "2005-02-13T05:46:59Z")
_Preppy_, although Merriam-Webster says the first recorded use was in 1967 (didn’t J.D. Salinger use it before then?). ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/7 "2005-02-13T05:50:34Z")
FWIW, there was an episode of _The Dick Van Dyke Show_ in which Rob and Buddy buy into a shoe store, and, through a plot contrivance, end up having to actually sell shoes for a day. The short, middle-age, surly professional shoe salesman hates them from sight, and ends up quitting, asserting, "I don’t have to put up with you \*\*\*college kids \*_(or maybe it was **college boys**?)"_ Quote from memory. What about ‘preppie’? I’m not sure how old that one is. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/8 "2005-02-13T05:52:13Z")
**Walloon** answered my question. ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/9 "2005-02-13T06:29:15Z")
“Preppie” was derived from college prepatory school, as private schools were known. As I first heard “Yuppie” in the late '70s, it referred to a young upwardly-mobile professional. “Nouveau riche” is perhaps related, although it doesn’t quite fit the bill. I do believe it predates “yuppie,” though. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/10 "2005-02-13T06:38:31Z")
_Yuppie_ dates to 1983, per Merriam-Webster. ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/11 "2005-02-13T06:49:50Z")
Their research is incomplete. The term was in use when I was in college in the '70s. I’m the cite. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/12 "2005-02-13T07:01:30Z")
“Bourgoise”. The term referred to the original middle-class urban dwellers in medieval times; it was 19th-century Socialists who made it derogatory. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/13 "2005-02-13T07:04:14Z")
I’ve always thought that the word _yippie_, member of the Youth International Party, dating from 1968, prompted the use of _yuppie_, which originally, according to several of the dics, had a rival, _yumpie_: Oxford Dictionary of New Words: \* At first (1982-4) “yuppie” competed with the form “yumpie” (which included the “m” of “upwardly-mobile”), but this form was perhaps too close to the verb “yomp”, with its military route-march associations, to succeed.\* [Etymology Online:](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=y&p=1)_1982, acronym from “young urban professional,” ousting competition from yumpie, from “young upward-mobile professional.” The word was felt as an insult by 1985._ ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/14 "2005-02-13T11:42:12Z")
Don’t know the history of it, but they used to call them “swells” I think. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/15 "2005-02-13T12:30:17Z")
I would disagree with “preppie”. A preppie would still be in school, while a yuppie is out of school and into a career. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/16 "2005-02-13T16:14:52Z")
“White Collar” comes to mind, but you’ve got to remember until the '60s the American dream was very much alive and that upper middle-class ideal was striven for by a good portion of the population. Our parents had made it through the Great Depression and World War II and even if they were working in a factory somewhere or a garage they considered themselves on the road to the upper middle class so that “preppie” or “yuppie” or “socie” concept was not a negative. It was something that they hoped for either for themselves or at the very least for their children. For that reason, I think that the terms (like “preppie” and “yuppie”) subtly implying negativity for that class of people did not really flower until the baby boomers first hit adulthood and they to a certain extent realized the concept of a upwardly mobile classless society was a myth. TV ---
**Author:** ![CBCD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@CBCD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBCD)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/17 "2005-02-13T17:35:48Z")
> [@Phase42](#): > > I would disagree with “preppie”. A preppie would still be in school, while a yuppie is out of school and into a career. I disagree with your disagreement. Once a preppy, always a preppy. Says me, a preppy. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/18 "2005-02-13T17:41:12Z")
> [@Ringo](#): > > Their research is incomplete. The term was in use when I was in college in the '70s. I’m the cite. By definition, etymology cites are to _written_ usage. If you can find the word used in print - even in a transcript of a TV show, movie, or the like - from the 1970s then you have a legitimate cite. But while most words have oral usage before they are recorded in print, there’s no way that dictionaries can rely on people’s almost always faulty memories for decades-old dates. They have to default to print. ---
**Author:** ![VernWinterbottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c67d28/32.png) [@VernWinterbottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VernWinterbottom)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/19 "2005-02-13T17:50:16Z")
Thanks for the answers, so far. The “college boy” from the Dick Van Dyke show also sounds like what I want to use. “Preppy” fits, too, but it might be a bit too modern for the situation. “Swell” is too old, as would be “dandy.” I’ll give you the paragraph I’m working on: ``` "As the years go by, it is becoming more and more difficult for Bud to think of a gift for Mae. Back in the early days it was easy. Every year he bought her a flowery card and a couple of cases of Narragansett beer. Except on the decades. For those anniversaries he’d give her the traditional gift outlined by Emily Post or somebody—tin for ten years, china for twenty, a pearl for thirty. Then, everybody’s favorite brewery in Cranston, Rhode Island, shut down and Bud and Mae stopped drinking beer. They just couldn’t stomach those sissified beers advertised by **yuppie boys** standing in mountain streams." ``` I’m trying for a word that Bud and Mae, who were married in 1963, would use to describe that guy wearing L.L. Bean clothes by a babbling brook. “Yuppy” would have been in use then, but it doesn’t sound like a word Bud Clinkerbilt would use. ---
**Author:** ![CaveMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cavemike/32/16379_2.png) [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824/20 "2005-02-13T17:53:18Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > By definition, etymology cites are to _written_ usage. If you can find the word used in print - even in a transcript of a TV show, movie, or the like - from the 1970s then you have a legitimate cite. But while most words have oral usage before they are recorded in print, there’s no way that dictionaries can rely on people’s almost always faulty memories for decades-old dates. They have to default to print. Isn’t recorded audio (e.g. speeches) considered a full-fledged cite? Or does it have to be transcribed? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earlier-slang-word-for-yuppie-type-person/289824.md?page=2)