Was a disco a dress before it was a nightclub? That's the surprising implication of the evidence OED researchers have uncovered while revising the entry for disco n. The earliest quotations our editors have found for the word, which is shortened from discotheque, mean 'a type of short sleeveless dress' (such as one might wear to a discotheque) and date from July 1964...
It isn't until the September 1964 issue of Playboy that we see disco meaning 'a nightclub' (though references to disco dancing are found as early as August)
What the OED editors hope ou'll do is pull out your early 60s magazines (you have some, right?) and go looking for references to disco that precede the July 1964 references to the short sleeveless dress.
There is some interesting context to consider here. The editors are trying to bridge the gap between the time when subcultural printed media exploded in the post-war west and when all that printed media was regularly digitized. It's those materials, the stuff produced by cheap means or only circulated in certain regions or among certain groups, that are hardest for researchers to get their hands on. But they are also the prized possessions of certain types of collectors and weirdos (among whom I would include myself on certain topics).
So what I particularly love about the OED's Appeals is that it is an exceptionally well-designed ask for participation. They want specific information from specific subsets of people who are extremely interested in these topics. This may be filed under crowdsourcing, but they are surgical asks, not carpet bombing.
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