Q: Coiner of "power nap"?

[C.Braham/H.Hankin]

It's James (Jim) Maas, professor of Psychology at Cornell.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Garson O'Toole" <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 11:11 PM
Subject: Re: Q: Coiner of "power nap"?


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> Subject:      Re: Q: Coiner of "power nap"?
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> Joel S. Berson wrote
>> On NPR just after the change to daylight savings time, there was a
>> piece about how to recover from the loss of sleep.  I heard a
>> reference to a "Mott", or "Moch", or some such, at Cornell, who
>> claimed to have coined the phrase "power nap".
>>
>> The OED draft rev. March 2010 has as its earliest "1986 Chicago
>> Tribune (Nexis) 4 May 1 He attended a party until the wee hours. He
>> had a horse to work, so instead of catching a *power nap, he went
>> directly to the barns at 4.30 a.m., replete in tuxedo and spats."
>>
>> Is Mr. M---'s claim supported?  (And did the horsy set at Cornell
>> also party hard?)
>>
>> Or does "power nap" go back to 1936, in The New Yorker, Vol. 12,
>> issue 2, page 80, col. 2, snippet view:
>>
>> Boulware is so drunk and so terrified that he collapses (or, as one
>> of the policemen puts it, "is so boxed, his response is to take a
>> little power nap on the sidewalk"), while Cash does the right thing
>> and hands over his wallet.
>
> The novel Lush Life by Richard Price was reviewed in an issue of the
> New Yorker dated April 7, 2008 (online). I think this text is from the
> review (and the novel). Apparently this is another case of faulty
> metadata.
>
> http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/04/07/080407crbo_books_wood?currentPage=2
>
> Every text match in my search results to content in the New Yorker has
> been incorrectly dated.
>
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