Remarkable Story of the Sports Term "Upset"

[Fred Shapiro]

On Wed, 4 Jun 2003, George Thompson wrote:

> Actually, on November 12, 2002, under the heading "Upset" in
> Horseracing, I submitted passages retrieved from the NYTimes online, by
> searching for the words "upset" and "racing" in the same story.  I found
> citations of "upset" used as a verb as far back as 1865, in the context
> of "upsetting the calculations, or expectations," of horse-players, and
> the following from 1877:  The coincidence that the horse that beat Man

My bad.  I looked only at the first "upset" thread on ADS-L, and missed
the second, "Shandy-Lack" thread entirely, including George's outstanding
research.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
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