on blizzards and infixes

[Laurence Horn]

On Feb 14, 2013, at 11:25 AM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 11:12 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:
>
>> blizzard
>
>
> What about this passage:
>
> I started down the edge of the river low grounds, giving out the pursuit of
> my elks, and hadn't gone hardly any distance at all, before I saw two more
> bucks, very large fellows too. I took a blizzard at one of them, and up he
> tumbled.
>
> NARRATIVE
> OF THE
> LIFE OF DAVID CROCKETT,
> OF TEE STATE OF TENNESSEE.
> WRITTEN BY HIMSELF
> E. L. Carey and A. Hart, 1834
>
Must have taken a very large amount of buckshot to get him to tumble up rather than down!  (The first OED cite for the sense 'a sharp blow or knock; a shot' is 1829, from the Virginia Literary Museum ("_Blizzard_, a violent blow"), but obviously the word must actually have been used before it was so mentioned.   Antedater alert!

LH

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