Richard Sandomir, “Things Are Going Zimmo” (Bats blog, New York Times, Feb. 14, 2013)
Ben Zimmer, the language columnist for The Boston Globe — he has never been called Zimmo to his face — said in an e-mail that Wednesday’s bit of Fred Speak “strikes me as a playful ad hoc formation, possibly influenced by such cartoonish words as ‘whammo’ and ‘blammo,’ onomatopoetically suggesting an explosion.”
He noted that some early 20th-century sportswriters called the infielder Heinie Zimmerman, Zimmo. But it would seem farfetched for Wilpon to have been thinking about a former New York Giant and Chicago Cub who played from 1907 to 1919.
A Mets spokesman declined to respond to a request to learn more about Wilpon’s seemingly impromptu word formation.
Zimmer wondered if two other words — zoom and boom — helped fuel Wilpon’s use of zimmo.
“They would be appropriate sound effects for a rapidly growing real estate market,” Zimmer said.
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