"on the county"

[Geoffrey Nunberg]

Does anybody have a sense of how far back "(living) on the county"
goes as a synonym for "on relief"? Google turns up a few modern hits
(e.g., via searches for "living on the county" etc.) but as far as I
can tell this meaning isn't listed under any dictionary's entry for
'county'.

Geoff Nunberg


Geoffrey Nunberg
Consulting Full Professor
School of Information,
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-4600
510-643-3894
http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/~nunberg
nunberg at ischool.berkeley.edu

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