"Bargaining Chip": Antedating & Mystery

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:20 PM -0400 8/13/02, Rick H Kennerly wrote:
>|o| looked at by professionals. This is ridiculous. Most of the etymological
>|o| suggestions that come from amateurs are preposterously stupid on their
>|o| face, unsupported by any evidence or even rational basis for belief,
>|o| and don't merit consideration (except for sociolinguistic purposes).
>|o|
>
>Well, you're quite the poster boy for the field.  Your tolerance is
>admirable.
>
>Fact is, over the last several weeks quite a number of us little folks have
>been shot down in flames by the list's linguistic experts with little more
>explanation than a dismissive remark and a kick in the keyboard, their
>professional opinion unsupported by any evidence to the contrary, just
>because they say so.  One might be able to get away with that in the right
>classroom or meeting, but not in a public forum.  What's good for the
>goose... etc.
>
Rick,

As someone who *is* trained as an academic linguist and *does* have
an academic position teaching linguistics (but who for the most part
hasn't participated actively in this particular thread), I'd like to
echo the point raised by Fred, Frank, Joanne, and others.  You seem
intent (again) on tarring them with the "academic"/"linguistic
expert"/"classroom" brush, when in fact the posters in question are
diligent full-time lexicographers whose main credentials in this
enterprise involve not academic degrees (which some of them may have
in linguistics; I really have no idea which of them might have which
degrees) but lots of experience at the hard work of searching out and
verifying etymologies.  The "evidence" in question is typically a
(proposed) first cite they've unearthed through first-hand searching
through texts or databases (e.g. JSTOR), and it's open to empirical
refutation or revision by ANYone (as has been stressed), regardless
of degrees held or not held.   As a lexicographer amateur and
sometime speculator myself, I'm happy to recognize and appreciate
what we've learned from the diligence of these pros.

Larry