Antedating of "Big Lie"

[Fred Shapiro]

In the course of working on the Yale Dictionary of Quotations I have found
many antedatings of important terms in the OED; after the YDQ is published
I will send a list of such antedatings to the OED.

Here's one example now, although I have not tracked down the precise
citation.  The OED's first use for "big lie" is dated 1946, when in fact
this originated in or was popularized by a well known passage in
Hitler's Mein Kampf.  Mein Kampf was published in a full English
translation in 1939 and an abridged translation in 1933, so I assume "big
lie" can be traced in English at least back to 1939.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
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