"Shifters" and their "argot", 1922; some antedatings of OED

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS vaults hold a 1918 "tomato."

JL

On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 11:54 PM, Ben Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Shifters" and their "argot", 1922; some antedatings of
> OED
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 7:42 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >
> > An op-ed column in today's NYTimes by Ben Schott, "A Ponzi Schems for
> > Flappers".  Describes the "Shifters", members of an informal,
> > unorganized organization that was a mixture of a financial scam and a
> > (mainly?) sororal social group, which existed for a few months in 1922:
> >
> >
> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/opinion/sunday/a-ponzi-scheme-for-flappers.html?pagewanted=all
> >
> > Amusing in itself, but also noteworthy for an "Argot of the
> > Shifters", a short dictionary of their slang, credited to the Toledo
> > News Bee of 1922 March 29.  My brief analysis reveals several
> > possible antedatings of the OED:
> > ----------
> >
> > Ankling along:  OED ankle v. sense 2.a is 1926--
>
> I've got cites for "ankle" (in various combinations) back to 1917 in
> this Language Log post:
>
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004210.html
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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