"AAVE" (the abbrev. itself)

[Joanne M. Despres]

We have nothing earlier on _BEV_, I'm sorry to say.  One of our
cites does mention "a _BEV_ sentence collected by Labov et al.
(1968) (and also appearing in Labov 1972)," but of course, that
doesn't mean that Labov et al. actually used the term _BEV_ in the
1968 source.  (I suspect you guys have already checked it
anyway, if it's an earlier edition of the 1972 book.)

Good luck with your hunt,

Joanne

On 5 Oct 2004, at 15:14, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 05, 2004 at 03:07:36PM -0400, Joanne M. Despres wrote:
> > Unfortunately, there's no antedating in the M-W files.  But I did
> > notice a citation in which the author mentions using "BEV" in 1992,
> > before "AAVE" had become the common term.
>
> Yes, _BEV_ goes back a lot further--our earliest example is Labov
> in 1972 (antedatings to this would also be appreciated!). I
> guess it's that when I started reading _AS_ and about AAVE, which
> was in the early-mid 1990s, "AAVE" struck me as being well
> established.
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
> OED


Joanne M. Despres, Senior Editor
Merriam-Webster, Inc.
jdespres at merriam-webster.com
http://www.merriam-webster.com