M-W vs. Grant Barrett on "ginormous"

[Michael Quinion]

Grant Barrett wrote:

> A double-plus congratulations for snagging the word.com domain name,
> which has quite a history of its own.

Thanks for the URL. The http://www.word.com/unabridged/index.html
page had a short list which was headed "All of these words had their
earliest recorded appearance 100 years ago" (ie 1905). A sense of
devilment led me to search newspaperarchive.com, resulting in these
antedatings:

  straphanger:        1903
     [Barry Popik found one rather earlier the same year]
  water pistol:       1901
  nervous breakdown:  1892
  jelly bean:         1886

--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
E-mail: <wordseditor at worldwidewords.org>
Web: <http://www.worldwidewords.org/>