More on "Unemployment"

[Fred Shapiro]

I should add, to clarify my remarks below, that the first use for
"unemployment" in the current OED is dated 1888.


On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, Fred Shapiro wrote:

> Yes, the Wall Street Journal is wrong that the word "unemployment" didn't
> exist until the late 1800s ("unemployment" is the word, Barry, connoting a
> sustained condition -- everyone admits that the word "unemployed" was
> around before then).  But it is very hard to find uses of
> "unemployment" before the late 1800s.  A very great historian, E.
> P. Thompson, wrote in _The Making of the English Working Class_ that he
> had found uses of the word earlier than the OED's (adding a snide remark
> that swallows appear in the British Isles weeks before the Times reports
> them, a remark that appears less snide now in view of the ease with which
> I and Barry and OED3 are demolishing OED first uses).
>
> Thompson, however, did not give any citations.  Some years ago I
> contributed an 1800 citation to the OED.
>
> Fred
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
> Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
>   Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
> Yale Law School                             forthcoming
> e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
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