In 2011, The New York Times published an article examining the assertion by some elders that millennials are “a generation of slackers.” Such assumptions about younger generations are nothing new. “Even Aristotle and Plato were said to have expressed similar feelings about the slacker youth of their times,” the article read. While we might use the word “slack” to refer to a certain messaging app today, “it appears in some of our earliest Old English written records,” the lexicographer Kory Stamper said.
In its earliest known use, “slack” as an adjective was used to describe a person “inclined to be lazy or idle,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In 1860, The Times published testimony from a hearing about the role of public money in supporting political parties’ newspapers and elections. A printer who worked for Congress took the stand and said of an editor he disliked, “I found him rather slack in it, and was compelled to procure other editorial assistance.”
But “slack” didn’t just describe the state of one editor’s productivity. By the 14th century, it was being used to describe something more physical, as in objects that are “not drawn or held tightly or tensely,” per the Oxford English Dictionary.
“Slack” was common in sailing parlance. The term “cut him some slack,” William Safire wrote in his On Language column in 1994, “derived from loosening a taut rope in sailing.” In 1860, The Times wrote about a massive steamship’s journey to Cape May, N.J. The article noted a cable that had to be replaced upon its arrival, “the slack of which was pulled out by the weight of the anchor.”
Ropes aside, “slack” in the plural had become somewhat synonymous with an everyday piece of clothing by the early 1900s: pants. A Times obituary in 1906 about a member of the U.S. Navy described the individual as “a highly educated cod” who “would have h’isted his slacks if he’d had ’em,” according to accounts by his fellow servicemen.
When it wasn’t describing a pair of trousers, “slack” was also being used in a more serious, accusatory tone. Sometime during World War I, the noun “slacker” began to appear frequently in The Times as a derogatory term for anyone avoiding military service. In 1921, The Times wrote about the War Department’s published “slacker list,” which named approximately 155,000 slackers and deserters for “condemnation,” the article stated. In World War II, “it was used interchangeably with draft dodger,” Mr. Safire also wrote.
Today, the term “slacker” might prompt a different connotation, perhaps messaging related. The company Slack — an acronym for Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge — was designed as a communications platform and became a workplace hit. In recent years, The Times has reported on ways to stop Slack from taking over your life and couples who use the platform to manage their relationships. “Slack is the classic Silicon Valley accidental success,” The Times reporter Katie Benner wrote in 2017. “But isn’t it funny,” she said in a recent interview, “that a tool to maximize productivity is called Slack?”
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