"slippery slope"

[Baker, John]

        I note that the 1857 usage is different from the usual one, where "slippery slope" refers to an initial step that, it is argued, must lead inexorably to a drastic outcome.

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: Kathleen E. Miller [mailto:millerk at NYTIMES.COM]
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2003 2:58 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "slippery slope"

Researched this for Safire 2002.

Found 1857, "Chamber's Journal," When the educated person of the middle
class is reduced to pennilessness ...what but gives him the desire to
struggle again up the slippery slope of fortune?"

You can find it on Cornell's Making of America.


Kathleen E. Miller
Research Assistant to William Safire
The New York Times