Zilch (origin)

[Guy Barry]

I was wondering where the term "zilch" meaning "nothing" came from. The
Online Etymology Dictionary has:

' "nothing," 1957; "insignificant person," 1933, from use of Zilch as a
generic comical-sounding surname for an insignificant person (especially Joe
Zilch). There was a Mr. Zilch (1931), comic character in the magazine
"Ballyhoo," and the use perhaps originated c.1922 in U.S. college or theater
slang. Probably a nonsense syllable, suggestive of the end of the alphabet,
but Zilch is an actual German surname of Slavic origin. '

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=zilch

However, World Wide Words says the word didn't first appear in print until
the 1960s:

' You’re right that dictionaries are almost uniformly cautious about the
origin of this word, which means “nothing; zero”. It appears first in print
in the mid 1960s (the first example in the big Oxford English Dictionary is
from a slang collection at the University of South Dakota dated Winter
1966). '

After mentioning the above-named character, it continues:

' But the years between the 1930s and the 1960s are a complete blank as far
as the development of the word is concerned, so we have no way of confirming
that this is the source. Indeed, the long gap might be indirect evidence
that it isn’t. Alas, etymology is not an exact science, so this is yet
another occasion on which I just have to say “Origin unknown”. '

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-zil1.htm

Any advance on this?

--
Guy Barry

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

The OED simply says: Origin uncertain.

The earliest quotes are for Zilch as a surname:

[1931 Ballyhoo I. i. 1 (heading) President Henry P. Zilch.
Chairman of the Board Charles D. Zilch. Treasurer Otto Zilch.
1931 Ballyhoo I. ii. 10 (caption) ‘Mr. Zilch, you don't often
stay in so long.’ ‘No I don't often lose my bathing trunks.’

Then:
1940 L. V. Berrey & M. Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §184/1
Dinglegoofer, Mr. Zilch, indefinite nicknames.]

The first example of "zilch" meaning nothing:

1966 Current Slang (Univ. S. Dakota) Winter 8 Zilch, adj.
Nothing, zero... What a day—zilch from everybody.

Ballyhoo was a "humor magazine":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballyhoo_%28magazine%29


--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)