dating phrases

[Laurence Horn]

At 2:26 PM -0600 2/3/01, Robert S. Wachal wrote:
>At a performance of the musical, RAGTINE, which I attended last night, I
>heard two potential anachronisms--"people of color" and "even as we speak."
>The events of the musical are during the period of World War One.
>
>Are these two phrases anachronisms?
>
>Bob Wachal

The Yale library put on an exhibit connected with the release of
Spielberg's Amistad movie several years ago, and among the large
number of documents on display was a letter thanking someone (maybe
John Quincy Adams) for their role on behalf of "persons of color".
This must have been written in 1842 or 1843.  I did transcribe the
relevant information--date, identity of writer and recipient,
etc.--but the relevant slip is in one my post-office-renovation boxes.

Depending on what others turn up here, "person/people of color" may
well be another candidate for the "dead-words-resuscitated" list.
(If it fell into desuetude after the Civil War, say, its use in the
WWI setting of Ragtime may well have constituted an anachronism even
though the phrase was attested in earlier years, but I'd guess it
never completely died out.)  And now, of course, we have "people of
faith" on the same model.

larry