"Murphy's Law" antedating 1943

[Shapiro, Fred]

Wow -- one of the best antedatings I have ever seen!  Stephen had already pretty much disproved the standard etymology for the term "Murphy's Law," but this puts the nail in the coffin.  Congratulations to Stephen!

Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Stephen Goranson [goranson at DUKE.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2009 9:48 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: "Murphy's Law" antedating 1943

Seeds of Hope: an Engineer's World War II Letters,
By William O. Sabel (West Lafayette, Ind. : Purdue University Press, 1999).

page 99 [letter date]:
March 26, 1943

page 100:
" My platoon is busy building a warehouse at the Air Force Supply Depot
[in the
Pacific campaign] We also put up a steel Quonset hut 20 X 100 feet and poured
the concrete floor today....I feel if I am not personally watching every move
the men make, something will go wrong and it usually does--Murphy's Law. They
can't look ahead and see the consequences of their present actions."

Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson

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