she sells sea...

[Stephen Goranson]

Yesterday on NPR, a story on Tracy Chevalier's new book, Remarkable Creatures,
about fossil hunter Mary Anning includes the following:

"She sells seashells by the seashore," recites Chevalier. The tongue twister,
she believes, was created in 1908 as a tribute to Mary Anning, even though
Anning sold mostly fossils.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122128042

GB has "she sells sea shells" from 1855

Letters and sounds: an introduction to English reading, on an entirely
new plan.
Alexander Melville Bell
1855 12mo. London, p.98

http://books.google.com/books?as_q=&num=10&lr=&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=she+sells+sea+shells+&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_brr=0&as_pt=ALLTYPES&lr=&as_vt=&as_auth=&as_pub=&as_sub=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1856&as_isbn=&as_issn=

and "She sells sea-shells by the seashore" from May 1905.

Primary Education v.13 p231

http://books.google.com/books?id=FGQVAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA231&dq=%22she+sells+sea+shells+by+the+seashore%22&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1908&as_brr=0&cd=1#v=onepage&q=%22she%20sells%20sea%20shells%20by%20the%20seashore%22&f=false

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

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org