"Bargaining Chip": Antedating & Mystery

[Rick H Kennerly]

|o|
|o| I don't think usages in 2002 or other recent years tell us
|o| anything about
|o| the origins of a term that seems to have originated in the 1950s or
|o| earlier.  I cannot emphasize too much that one finds out about etymology
|o| by historical research, not by speculation or conjecture.

I think your point becomes more valid as scores of decades pass, but in this
case we're talking about a term coined within the lifetime of many of the
people on this list and that, rightly or wrongly, has much association in
popular usage with the game of poker.  If nothing else, the road to that
transformation should be as interesting as it's birthplace.  Now there's not
enough of the 1960s snippet you published at the beginning of this thread to
get a feel for the context of its use, but the whole point of the Google
search was not that it was definitive but that abandoning a popular
understanding of a phrase of such tender years seems rash.

|o| I realize that I am saying that 99% of etymological commentary is
|o| worthless, but that is my viewpoint.
|o|

yet you persist.

rhk