African American, was: "AAVE" (the abbrev. itself)

[Mullins, Bill]

>Interestingly, I was just having a discussion with a colleague
>about this problem--the fact that historical citation research,
>and in particular the data available in big databases, can
>obscure rather than illumine the real history of terms, because
>it can give a false impression of when a usage truly became
>current.

I respectfully disagree with your conclusion here.  More (relevant) data is
always useful.  If it "obscures" the history,  it's because the data aren't
being analyzed properly.  The fault lies with the person drawing the
conclusion, rather than the presence or absence of the data, or the
existence of the database.

The existence of searchable huge databases is, essentially, a new tool.
It's not suprising that new procedures, questions, analyses, etc. that take
advantage of that tool must be developed as well.  IMHO.