"thousand-yard stare" (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE


>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      "thousand-yard stare"
> >
> >
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> ----------
> >
> > Should the OED add "thousand-yard stare"?  Wikipedia's article of
> > that name dates it to the title of a Life Magazine painting in 1944
> > (although that used "2,000").  Google Books gives about 57 results
> > before 1951, all snippets, and some journals and so needing
> verification.
> >
> >


Wikipedia was wrong (surprise!).  Tom Lea's painting appears in the June
11 1945 issue of Life:

http://books.google.com/books?id=_EkEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA61&dq=%22tom%20lea%2
2&as_pt=MAGAZINES&pg=PA65#v=onepage&q=%22tom%20lea%22&f=false

and is not titled there.   I've tried to straighten up the wiki a
little, but it would take a bigger re-write than I will do to really fix
it.


Legit 1944 cites:

[no author given; interview with George E. Jones, UP war correspondent]
"War Reporter Home to Rest,"_Oregonian_ [Portland OR] 4/6/1944 p 9 col 2
"And they have that 'thousand-yard stare' a look of utter fatigue, as if
somebody had placed a film over their eyes."

Hansford Martin, "Thousand-yard stare"  [short story] _Harper's
Magazine_ v. 189 (November 1944) p. 523-8



Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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