[Ads-l] "Boxed" adj > "box"

Mark Mandel markamandel at GMAIL.COM
Tue Mar 10 20:50:38 UTC 2020


Nice fix, Ben.

MAM

On Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 4:31 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> I doubt that "box score" originated as "boxed score" -- in the baseball
> context, it was "box score" from early on. OED is no help (thanks to its
> relatively weak coverage of baseball terms). Merriam-Webster dates "box
> score" to 1899, while Dickson's Baseball Dictionary cites a 1908 article by
> Edward J. Nichols in Baseball Magazine that says the term is derived "from
> the old newspaper custom of placing the data in a boxed-off section on the
> page." Henry Chadwick is credited with developing the modern baseball box
> score in 1859 in the New York Clipper, but evidently it took a while for
> the innovation to get its name.
>
> In a 2010 thread, Bill Mullins and Dan Goncharoff shared examples from June
> 1896.
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2010-May/099052.html
>
> Here are two from a month earlier:
>
> ---
> Birmingham (Ala.) State Herald, May 14, 1896, p. 1, col. 4
> Read the results and figure over the box score and see what Birmingham did
> for Atlanta yesterday.
> https://newspaperarchive.com/sports-clipping-may-14-1896-1584884/
> ---
> Birmingham (Ala.) State Herald, May 28, 1896, p. 2, col. 5
> Following is the box score and summary.
> https://newspaperarchive.com/sports-clipping-may-28-1896-1584898/
> ---
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 10:23 AM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > And surely "box score" was once similar?
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 10:17 AM Jonathan Lighter <
> wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > How 'bout the well established "box wine"?
> > >
> > > JL
> > >
> > > On Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 9:43 AM Mark Mandel <markamandel at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >> We've all been seeing "box set" (of a trilogy, set of CDs, etc.) for a
> > >> long
> > >> time. I've never liked it, but /bɔkssɛt/ is an unsurprising elision
> from
> > >> /bɔkstsɛt/.
> > >>
> > >> But this morning I see in the current (April(!)) issue of *Consumer
> > >> Reports
> > >> On Health* , p.7, top of the 3rd column
> > >> "One drawback of canned and box soups: sodium."
> > >>
> > >> It's the same cluster reduction, /bɔ*kst*sup/ > /bɔ*kss*up/. It's just
> > the
> > >> first I recall seeing other than "... set".
> > >>
> > >>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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