A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from April 25, 2011
Spendaholic (spend + -aholic)

‘Spendaholic” (spend + -aholic) is someone who has the disease of excess spending, much like an acoholic has with alcohol. The term “spendaholic” has been cited in print since at least 1975 and has been frequently applied to a free-spending government.
 
   
Wiktionary: spendaholic
Etymology
From spend + -aholic.
Noun
spendaholic
(plural spendaholics)
1.(informal) A person who is addicted to spending money.
 
(Oxford English Dictionary)
-aholic, suffix
Forms:  Also -(o)holic.
colloq. (orig. U.S.).
The final element of workaholic n. (after alcoholic adj. 2) used as a suffix forming ns., as computerholic, newsaholic, spendaholic, etc., (chiefly humorous nonce-words) denoting one who appears to be addicted to the object, activity, etc., specified; a person subject to an inordinate craving for or obsession with (something).
1965 P. Wyden Overweight Society vi. 106,  I was a sugarholic…Mom kept saying, ‘You eat your spinach and I’ll give you a piece of candy.’
1971 Southern Living May 29/1   Donald Goldstein‥probably knows more manufacturers personally than Porter and other club manufacturers. Goldstein, you see, is a ‘golfaholic’.
 
20 January 1975, Oneonta (NY) Daily Star, pg. 10, col. 1:
“Spendaholics”
don’t keep track

COOPERSTOWN—Are you a “Spendaholic?”
 
Do you really know where your money goes? If you’re like most families, there is probably money each month that just sifts through your fingers.
 
19 October 1975, Danville (VA) Register, “Virginia News Briefs,” pg. 3A, col. 3:
STAUNTON (AP)—Over-regulation and the federal government’s “spend-a-holic” fiscal policies are killing the spirit of free enterprise in America, Sen. Harry F. Byrd Jr., D-Va., said Saturday.
 
17 February 1976, Ukiah (CA) Daily Journal, Letters, pg. 7, col. 5:
But if the president’s performance is found wanting, the spendaholics in Congress seem beyond hope.
 
Google News Archive
8 October 1976, Bend (OR) Bulletin, pg. 6, col. 2:
Spendaholics: They abuse credit as drunks use liquor
By Jane Bryant Quinn
Of the Washington Post
(...)
Here are some of the symptoms of a spendaholic:
 
—Most of his paycheck is committed in advance to debt payments and overdue bills.
—As soon as he pays off one bill he thinks he can afford to run up another, no matter how many other unpaid debts he still has in the drawer. ...
 
Google Books
Tax Target, Washington
By Gary Allen
Seal Beach, CA: ‘76 Press
1978
Pg. 8:
You work from January first until June sixth to keep the country’s spendaholics in green booze.
 
Google Books
Everyone’s Money Book
By Jane Bryant Quinn
New York, NY: Delacorte Press
1979
Pg. 99:
You probably charge many things that you might not have bought if you’d had to pay right then in plain green dollars. That’s why spendaholics can’t be trusted with a charge account.

Posted by {name}
New York CityBanking/Finance/Insurance • Monday, April 25, 2011 • Permalink


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