"slippery slope"

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:09 PM -0400 6/27/03, Baker, John wrote:
>         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

Right.  More like "the greased flagpole of fortune".

>
>-----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