I say howitzer, Google and the Gentleman (1738) say nowitzer

[Joel S. Berson]

Jesse, does the OED need another variant spelling for "howitzer"?  :-)

At 6/1/2010 09:25 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>I will claim that this is an antedating for the spelling "howitzer",
>"Nowitzer" being a type-setter's error, misreading an H in an
>unfamiliar word for an N.  (The news item is surely a transcription
>from a London newspaper.)  I don't find "nowitzer" in the OED.

Well!  What am I to make of the about 1086 instances of "nowitzer"
found by Google Books, 415 of them from 1940 on, not to mention the
about 1510 found by Google Web?  It seems no easier to separate the
OCR chaff from the wheat with GB than with EAN!

On the other hand -- I have encountered the source of my 1739 Sept. 3
Boston Evening-Post article.  The BEP has:
"Yesterday the following Bomb Vessels were put into Commission at the
Admiralty Office ... Each of them carries one 13 Inch Mortar, and one
10 inch Nowitzer, with 40 Shells and 40 [...]casses for each Mortar
and Nowitzer."

The extremely clear type of the Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. 8 (1738),
page 435, col. 1 (GB full view), has:
"Each Bomb-Vessel carries one 13 Inch Mortar, and one 10 Inch
Nowitzer, with 400 Shells, and 40 Carcasses for each Mortar  and Nowitzer".

Is the Gentleman's Magazine too a typesetter's error?  (But I
apologize to the BEP's typesetter: his eye was sharper than I gave
him credit for.)

Someone else can struggle through the other 475 pre-1939 GB instances
of "nowitzer", most if not all of which are surely OCR or typesetting
errors or broken type (h -> n).

Joel

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