Tracing the origin of the pink slip
Where did that pink slip come from? No, not from your boss. Jesse Sheidlower, editor-at-large for the Oxford English Dictionary, speaks to Kai Ryssdal about the term's origins.
Photo illustration of manager with pink slip and ax. (iStockPhoto)
TEXT OF INTERVIEW
Kai Ryssdal: Another 650,000 people started collecting unemployment checks last week. Fewer than expected but still near record highs. One might say, "Wow, that's a lot of pink slips." But why would you say that? Where'd that particular phrase come from? We've called somebody who's in a position to know. Jesse Sheidlower is an editor-at-large of the Oxford English Dictionary. Good to have you with us.
Jesse Sheidlower: Good to be here. Thank you.
Ryssdal: So can you help us out with pink slip, and where it came from?
SHEIDLOWER: Not entirely. Because I'm afraid that nobody really knows exactly where it comes from. What most people will say is that people used to get fired from jobs by getting a notice on pink paper. That sounds, obviously, completely sensible. The problem is no one has found evidence for this actually happening. Historians have spent a great deal of effort looking into all sorts of records for a literal example of a pink slip being used to fire someone and has never found them.
Ryssdal: Wait a minute. So someone made it up, and it just stuck?
SHEIDLOWER: Well, what happens is that we have evidence from around the turn of the last century in a number of different contexts where a pink slip is something critical in various ways. The very earliest example we have is where a pink slip is a note sent to a typographer indicating that he's made a mistake. And if you got enough of them then you would be fired. Yet another intermediate one in 1905 where a pink slip is specifically a rejection letter from a magazine. So a writer would submit a story, and it would get a pink slip back, meaning that the story was rejected. So clearly there is something going on at around this time where pink slip is being used to refer to various kinds of rejection.
Ryssdal: Is it an Americanism? Or do they have the same thing in say the UK, or in Russia, or in India?
SHEIDLOWER: No, it is an Americanism. But one of the interesting things about it is that in other countries they have different colors to refer to dismissal from a job. So in Germany the expression is to get the blue letter. In the French military, you would be dismissed with a yellow paper, carte jaune.
Ryssdal: So it's been a 100 or so years since this phrase started. And yet here we find ourselves in an age where people are dismissed by text message and voice mail. Why do you think it stuck around so long?
SHEIDLOWER: Well, once the expression sticks there's no reason for it to go away. We still talk about dialing a phone, even though phones don't have dials anymore. So once an expression is established, the ultimate meaning, even if we don't know what it is, doesn't necessarily have any relevance. And people keep using it even if the original meaning has changed, or we've forgotten what it is, or if we never knew.
Ryssdal: Jesse Sheidlower. He's an editor-at-large at the Oxford English Dictionary. Mr. Sheidlower, thanks a lot for your time.
SHEIDLOWER: Thanks for having me.
Comments
Comment | Refresh
From South Lyon, MI, 01/25/2010
The origin of the term pink slip is an easy one to discern. All you need to know is someone who was laid off in the era of paper instead of electronic forms. After question my father and many of his friends the answer was obvious. In the past, many companies would assist the newly terminated employees by registering them for unemployment benefits. The application form came in triplicate; the white copy for the state, yellow copy for the company, and the pink copy ("slip") for the employee.
From Wyckoff, NJ, 04/10/2009
I was very surprised to hear that you have no evidence of a "Pink Slip". In 1973, I was fired from a steel foundry in Pennsylvania and I still have my "Pink Slip" (Actually, they gave me the copy which should have gone to the Foreman - which is yellow.) Pink slips were standardized, multi-part forms used in many industries at that time. The reason I still have it is because I always considered the cause of my being fired a compliment. The slip reads:"NOT SUITED FOR FOUNDRY WORK" I would be happy to email it to you.
Post a Comment: Please be civil, brief and relevant.
Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments. All comments are moderated. Marketplace reserves the right to edit any comments on this site and to read them on the air if they are extra-interesting. Please read the Comment Guidelines before posting.
You must be 13 or over to submit information to American Public Media. The information entered into this form will not be used to send unsolicited email and will not be sold to a third party. For more information see Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.