Barry Popik spots Yanigan in 1895, 1896

[Gerald Cohen]

>From: "Peter Morris" <moxbib at voyager.net>
>Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 21:52:36 -0500
>Subject: RE: [19cBB] yanigans
>Reply-To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com
>
>Lee Allen's The Hot Stove League is the earliest source I can find that
>attributes the coinage of "Yannigans" to Jerry Denny in 1884.  No doubt
>Allen picked it up from a note somewhere, and possibly a check of Denny's
>file at Cooperstown would have the note.  However, while I have great
>respect for Allen, I'm very skeptical that Yannigans was coined in 1884
>since there is no evidence of its appearing in print until over a decade
>later.
>
>Peter Morris

****

Below my signoff is a recent posting by attorney/word sleuth Barry
Popik to the American Dialect Society:

Jerry Cohen
member of 19cBB and American Dialect Society


>Date:         Thu, 5 Dec 2002 20:28:10 EST
>From: Bapopik at AOL.COM
>Subject:      Yanigan (1895)
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
>    I didn't have much time today to research the Philadelphia and Baltimore
>newspapers.  I'll try again on Saturday.  There's no rush--the DICTIONARY OF
>AMERICAN REGIONAL ENGLISH and the HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN SLANG
>still aren't at "Y."
>    1894 was not read.  I didn't see the term in Baltimore in 1895, but I
>looked very quickly.
>
>
>    26 March 1895, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, pg. 6, col. 1:
>    The first or regular team of the Philadelphia Club rather rubbed it in on
>the second or "Yanigan" nine this afternoon, and this evening Mike Grady has
>been endeavoring to figure out how it all happened.
>
>    21 March 1896, THE SUN (Baltimore), pg. 6, col. 4:
>_Regulars and Yanigans of the Baltimore Team._