[lit-ideas] Re: F*ckland

From the OED
e. Young Turks, a name given in the 20th century to the Ottomans who tried to rejuvenate the Turkish empire, and bring it more into line with European ideas: opposed to Old Turks who were against such ideals. (See also sense 4.) Also transf. (sometimes with lower-case initials): any group of young or relatively young men full of new ideas and impatient for change; esp. a radical or ‘progressive’ element in a political party. Occas. sing.
1908 Daily News 5 Aug. 4/7 Will the glorification of the ‘Young Turk’ kill this expression as one of reproach to be used in the nursery? 1909 [see Turkdom below]. c1929 in W. Safire New Lang. Politics (1968) 496/2 These new Republican warriors were called the Young Turks, a band of about 20 who had mutinied against the feeble leadership of the Old Guard. For Senators they were young men (average age: 56). 1953 W. S. CHURCHILL in Ibid. 497/2 You're just like the Young Turks in my government. 1963 D. OGILVY Confessions Advert. Man (1964) ii. 24 In hiring, the emphasis will be on youth. We are looking for young turks. 1971 A. MIZENER Saddest Story 331 E. E. Cummings and Pound..were writers little calculated to attract the Young Turks, for whom they would seem elder statesmen of the modern movement. 1981 J. DUNNING Deadline (1982) xvii. 160 Malcolm Dawes had been a career man. He was a young turk, graduating from the FBI Academy in 1952.
b. In to turn Turk, become Turk, and similar phrases. (But also used in senses 2 and 4.)
1592 KYD Sol. & Pers. III. v, What say these prisoners? will they turne Turke, or no? 1602 SHAKES. Ham. III. ii. 287 If the rest of my Fortunes turne Turke with me. 1615 G. SANDYS Trav. I. 54 No Iew can turne Turke, untill he first turne Christian. 1629 J. M. tr. Fonseca's Dev. Contempl. 403 The Souldier, he will turne Turke vpon point either of profit, or of honor. 1632 LITHGOW Trav. IV. 141 [He] turnd Turke, and was circumcised. 1687 A. LOVELL tr. Thevenot's Trav. I. 42 Many are perswaded, that when a Jew turns Turk, he must first become Christian, which is very false. 1737 [S. BERINGTON] G. di Lucca's Mem. (1738) 282 He offered to turn Turk if they would spare him.
4. transf. a. Applied to any one having qualities attributed to the Turks; a cruel, rigorous, or tyrannical man; any one behaving as a barbarian or savage; one who treats his wife hardly; a bad-tempered or unmanageable man. Often, with alliterative qualification, terrible Turk; young or little Turk, an unmanageable or violent child or youth. 1536 Exhort. North 56 in Furniv. Ballads fr. MSS. I. 306 Thes Sothorne turkes pervertyng owre lawe. 1579 LYLY Euphues (Arb.) 42 Was neuer any Impe so wicked and barbarous, any Turke so vyle and brutishe. a1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Turk, any cruel hard-hearted Man. a1845 HOOD Lay Real Life v, Who said my mother was a Turk, And took me home{em}and made me work, But managed half my meals to shirk? My Aunt. 1847 HELPS Friends in C. Ser. I. vii. 114 Why you Mahometan, you Turk of a lawyer{em}would you do away with all the higher things of courtesy, tenderness for the weaker [etc.]? 1854 N. & Q. 1st Ser. IX. 451/1 We often hear of people bad to manage being ‘regular Turks’. 1862 Spectator 6 Dec. 1363/1 The new generation of Greeks have a real passion for education; without it they say a man is a ‘Turk’, that last epithet of opprobrium. 1863 FRITH in Autobiog. & Remin. (1887) I. xxiv. 351 As to Prince William of Prussia, of all the little Turks he is one of the worst. 1874 SIR W. W. HUNTER in Life xiii. (1901) 228 Mr. Lyall is a terrible Turk at keeping his wife up to her social duties. 1875 A. MOZLEY Ess. fr. Blackwood 217 A bad temper does seem often favourable to health. The man who has been a Turk all his life lives long to plague all about him. 1891 G. MEREDITH One of our Conq. xxix, The tastes of the civilized man{em}a creature that is not clean-washed of the Turk in him. 1904 Police Magistrate in Daily News 26 Nov. 9/2 ‘You are a young Turk, and a bad Turk, too;..I think I ought to send you to a reformatory school.’ 1908 [see 2e].
b. A person of Irish birth or descent. slang (usu. depreciatory). Chiefly U.S. In this sense perh. really a derivative of Ir. torc boar, hog, as suggested by W. A. McLaughlin (Dialect Notes (1914) IV. 147-8); but cf. TURKEY n.2 6b.
1914 in Dialect Notes IV. 148 You Italians have the votes, but it takes us Turks to run the government. 1945 MENCKEN Amer. Lang. Suppl. I. 603 Turk is used among Roman Catholic priests in the United States to designate a colleague of Irish birth. 1959 Observer 1 Mar. 10/1 Their backs are to the wall in a desperate tyre-chain feudal war to protect the integrity of their declining manor against the invasion of ‘bubbles and squeaks’ (Greeks and Cypriots), ‘turks’ (Irish) and ‘spades’ (coloureds). 1971 S. HOUGHTON Current Prison Slang (MS.) 17 Turk, Paddy, Irishman. 
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I wasn't aware (until this thread began) of the use of the expression 'little Turk' to describe a refractory child. There's another use of 'young Turk' that hasn't been mentioned:'A Young Turk is a young person who is rebellious and difficult to control in a company, team or organisation.' I associate it with corporations, Wall Street, etc. 'The Young Turks are trying to force management to paint the walls mauve.' I'm not sure if women can be Young Turks. 

Robert Paul,
waiting for Sunday



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