Date:  Mon, 12 Jan 1998 15:34:44 EST
From:  AAllan <AAllan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: skell?

You'll find it in the brand-new _Oxford Dictionary of New Words_ (1997), which
misleadingly takes the same title as its 1991 predecessor (without calling
itself a new edition), but seems to be almost entirely new.

It defines the word:
In New York, a homeless person or derelict, especially one who sleeps in the
subway system. Perhaps formed as a shortening of _skeleton_.

and cites the NY Times Magazine 31 January 1982, p 21:
"Other New Yorkers live there . . . eating yesterday's bagels and sleeping on
benches. The police in New York call such people 'skells.'"

as well as Newsday from 1988.

- Allan Metcalf