Red Carpet; Nowhere to go but up; Thin as Matzoh

[Jan Ivarsson TransEdit]

As I don't have the NY Herald of 1963 accessible here, I'm not sure of which date Barry Popik wants to give for "red carpet".
It is certainly anterior to 1934, though. The Swedish Academy's Dictionary has the corresponding "röd matta" with the same sense from 1913, and the expression was probably not invented here. But it may well have been a translation of an article from the U.S. that is behind the Swedish expression.

Jan Ivarsson
Simrishamn, Sweden
jan.ivarsson at transedit.st

----- Original Message -----
From: "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2001 12:08 AM
Subject: Re: Red Carpet; Nowhere to go but up; Thin as Matzoh


> In a message dated 04/08/2001 6:14:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> Bapopik at AOL.COM writes:
>
> >    "The Red Carpet Returns" by Lucius Beebe is in the NEW YORK magazine
> > section of the Sunday NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, 13 October 1963, pp. 14-15.
> >     OED has this from 1934, but the "red carpet" treatment is well
> described
> > here by Beebe.  It may have originated with a train called _The 20th
> Century
> > Limited_.
>
> William D. Middleton "The Grandest Terminal of Them All" _Trains_ Volume 35
> Number 7, May 1975.
>
> page 29 top of column 1 "For close to four decades after Grand Central's
> completion, the great limiteds were to remain the premiere means of American
> overland public transportation...every afternoon the [New York] Central's
> famous maroon carpet was rolled out for the departure, usually in multiple
> sections, of that doyenne of American trains, the _20th Century Limited_."
>
> (page 27 column 2 Grand Central Terminal was opened February 2, 1913).
>
> The above quote is not proof, but does indicate that in 1913 or soon after an
> actual red or maroon carpet was in use at Grand Central Terminal, providing a
> referent for the phrase "red-carpet treatment".
>
>         - Jim Landau