Antedating of the Term "Murphy's Law"

[Shapiro, Fred]

I thought the locus classicus was in 1949, but I may be wrong about that.  In any case, what I meant is that if we push the term "Murphy's Law" back a few more years, it will pretty much knock out the validity of the locus classicus.

Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Baker, John [JMB at STRADLEY.COM]
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 2:03 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Antedating of the Term "Murphy's Law"

        No, the supposed Edwards Air Force Base locus classicus was in
1948, which would not at all be inconsistent with the aphorism and name
being repeated to Anne Roe in 1948 or 1949.


John Baker



-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Shapiro, Fred
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 12:40 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Antedating of the Term "Murphy's Law"

I believe that Dave's analysis of dates, if correct, means that we have
come close to pretty much disproving the standard Edwards Air Force Base
mythology about the origin of "Murphy's Law."

Fred Shapiro



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From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Dave Wilton [dave at WILTON.NET]
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 11:29 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Antedating of the Term "Murphy's Law"

Correction: the introductory letter to biologists also contains a
citation for a 1947 journal article, this pushes the incidents with the
physicists out to no earlier than 1948-49.

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Dave Wilton
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 7:11 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Antedating of the Term "Murphy's Law"

I can't be certain as Roe does not give the dates for her surveys of
scientists.

She spent a year with each of three different groups of scientists:
biologists, physicists, and social scientists, in that order. She
includes the text of a letter introducing herself to a biologist that
cites a 1946 work. As the incidents with the physicists are the ones
with the references to Murphy's Law, we can assume they took place no
earlier than 1947 and no later than 1950. My best guess is that the
period studying the physicists was in 1949.

I haven't read the whole book in detail, so there may be some other
references to dates, but none that are apparent on a skim through the
pages.

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Baker, John
Sent: Sunday, January 06, 2008 6:14 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Antedating of the Term "Murphy's Law"

        Do the periods described on pp. 46 - 47 or on p. 214 predate the
1948 incident from which some suppose Murphy's law took its name?


John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Dave Wilton
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 7:13 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Antedating of the Term "Murphy's Law"

I got a copy of the book from the UC Berkeley library. There's no
explanation of who Murphy was, but more slightly more complete quotes
than those given by the Google Books snippets follow:

Roe, Anne, _The Making of a Scientist_ (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company,
1952, 1953.

pp.46-47:
"There were a number of particularly delightful incidents. There is, for
example, the physicist who introduced me to one of my favorite 'laws,'
which he described as 'Murphy's law or the fourth law of thermodynamics'
(actually there were only three last I heard) which states: 'If anything
can go wrong it will.'"

p. 214:
"It was while working on this part of the study that I ran into the
perfect exemplification of 'Murphy's law' at one university, where
everything that could go wrong did!"

p. 224:
"Certainly this was Murphy's law in operation,--but I will never be the
same again."

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