Negative Nancies and other related musings

[Garson O'Toole]

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 12:45 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
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> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Negative Nancies and other related musings
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>
> At 3/20/2010 09:53 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>At 9:13 PM -0400 3/20/10, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>>I had not previously met these perhaps even more ancient gentlemen.
>>>
>>>But for John Stiles, the OED does not have a definition, and the 3
>>>instances (the first from 1671, and the other two from Blackstone)
>>>seem all to refer to real people!  And I do not meet Richard Miles in
>>>the OED at all.
>>>
>>>Did these names become generic, and when?  Or, Laurence, are you
>>>putting us on again?
>>>
>>>Joel
>>
>>Me?  Putting you on?  Perish the thought!
>>
>>Here's Michael Quinion's take (found among various others by googling
>>the anonymous couple below):
>>http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-joh2.htm
>
> Michael says, in this page created 15 Mar. 2003, that "the Oxford
> English Dictionary editors tell me that they've recently found it in
> a work of 1659: "To prosecute the suit, to witt John Doe And Richard
> Roe"."  I did not know, since this has not reached the OED yet
> (although the entry for "John" is still 2nd ed. 1989).  And Michael
> does not cite any sources or dates for the unreality of John Stiles
> and Richard Miles.  (Wikipedia cites Quinion, and I would not be
> surprised if the other 4578 hits all derive from these 2!)
>
> Joel
>
>
>>And if you don't trust Michael or me, you certainly will accept the
>>authority of Yahoo! Answers:
>>http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080619215405AAo1DYW
>>
>>LH

1668, Songs and other Poems, Third Edition Enlarged
(There may be a 1659 book with the poem excerpted below.)

Against one Roger Pricklove, who doth lye
A prisoner in Marshalls Custody
Et cetera, and 'tis upon a plea
Of trespass on the case, Pledges there be
To prosecute the suite, to wit, John Doe
And Richard Roe. And the said bill also

http://books.google.com/books?id=hJY0AAAAMAAJ&q=Richard-Roe#v=snippet&

Here is a court case with a curious cast of characters: John Stiles,
Thomas Nokes, John Doe, and Richard Roe. The title page says it is an
1805 publication, but I did not check it carefully. Also, I did not
try to find the earliest evidence of generic use for these names.

http://books.google.com/books?id=2ps-AAAAIAAJ&q=Stiles+administrator#v=snippet&

Here is a court case in which Richard Miles makes an appearance with
life-long friends and companions: John Doe, Richard Roe, and John
Stiles. The title page says "Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court at
October Term, 1945" but there may be another title page deeper in the
volume with a different date. I did not check carefully.

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ptsearch?id=mdp.39015035791576&q1=%22Richard+Miles%22


John Stiles has a lovely wife Mary Stiles who is an executrix. The
case below it adds John Denn and Richard Fenn. Is anybody real?

http://books.google.com/books?id=2ps-AAAAIAAJ&q=John+Stiles+Mary#v=snippet&

Garson

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