"upset"

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:11 PM -0500 3/2/02, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>  > I've sometimes heard it claimed that the actual origin of this
>>  nominal sense, however, is from the unexpected victory of a dark
>>  horse (I don't know if he was a literal dark horse as well as a
>>  figurative one) named Upset over Man O' War in the 1919 Sanford
>>  Stakes at Saratoga--the only race out of 21 he entered in which Man
>>  O' War was defeated.  This sounds like a folk etymology to me, but I
>>  couldn't confirm this in the OED, which surprisingly has NO relevant
>>  entry or cites in its (on-line) listings for "upset".
>
>Unless, of course, you click on the "Additions" tab, and see the entries
>that were added to one of the three OED Additions Series volumes
>published in 1993 and 1997. If you do this you will see that the OED's
>first quote for _upset_ in the 'unexpected victory in sports' sense
>dates from 1921, or very much in line, at least dating-wise, with
>the putative Sanford Stakes etymology. (However, OED describes it as
>"orig. Tennis"; I don't know if that was on the basis of the one cite
>or if there's additional evidence.
>
My bad; I didn't notice the Additions tab.  I can actually imagine
that a first use in tennis (or even in baseball, if the World Series
sweep of the mighty Philadelphia A's by the Miracle Boston Braves of
1914 had been deferred until 1920) could have been modeled after the
victory of Upset over Man O' War, if that was immediately recognized
as the canonical upset.  But the etymological claim still seems a bit
shaky--if Man O' War had been surprised by the upstart Chocolate
Pudding in the Sanford, would we now be hailing the Patriots' Super
Bowl triumph as a great chocolate pudding?

larry