"Liggers" -- early uses [was: er, something else]

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Brad Germolene - 20 Nov 2006 20:27 GMT

I've found a couple more citations that I think are better than the
current OED ones, since they either predate or are from much better
sources than the OED ones:

It turns out I was right about both the earlier date and the likely
sources:

Here's CSM in the NME in 1974:

    "Relax, Frank. We Ain't No Liggers. A Few of Us Just Came to
    Join In"

    -- *New Musical Express* (headline for Frank Zappa interview
    by Charles Shaar Murray), 5 October 1974

And heres a good 'un from an impeccable source in '77:

    "This offer does not apply to Island Records executives,
    groupies, liggers, Elvis Costello and employees of Stiff."

    -- Liner notes for Elvis Costello's *My Aim Is True* LP
    (Stiff Records), released 23 July 1977.

How's about that, then?

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Brad Germolene

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Brad Germolene - 20 Nov 2006 20:53 GMT

>I've found a couple more citations that I think are better than the
>current OED ones, since they either predate or are from much better
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
>Here's CSM in the NME in 1974:

Stop press. Here's another NME one from a year earlier:

    "Over the past six years I've accumulated over 14 plastic
    musical instruments with a very wide gamut of sounds. And I've
    found that by slowing them down or speeding them up on tape, I
    can imitate any electric sound. With this in mind, I want to
    make a straight-forward rock record and then appear on 'Top Of
    The Pops' with a bunch of liggers playing these things."

    -- Brian Eno (quoted by Nick Kent), *New Musical Express*,
    16 July 1973

These earlier examples suggest that "ligger" was originally used for
any rock hanger-on in general (a groupie being a specific type of
ligger), only acquiring the additional "freeloader" meaning in the
post-punk era.

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Brad Germolene

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matt271829-news@yahoo.co.uk - 21 Nov 2006 00:03 GMT

> >I've found a couple more citations that I think are better than the
> >current OED ones, since they either predate or are from much better
[quoted text clipped - 24 lines]
> --
> Brad Germolene

I thought a "ligger" was always a "nobody", and that if you got to
appear on TOTP then you'd graduated from liggerdom to something a
little higher up the food chain. I suppose Brian Eno was being ironic...

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Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006

"Liggers" -- early uses [was: er, something else]