Antedating of "Unemployment"

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:20 PM -0500 1/23/04, Baker, John wrote:
>         This sounds like "not in use," rather than "forced idleness"
>(the meaning referred to in the infamous Wall Street Journal
>article).  Is there an antedating for the "forced idleness" meaning?
>
>John Baker

Right, just what I was going to say.  The 1888 OED cite involves the latter:

1888 Science XI. 192/1 The chief purpose of the inquiry was to
ascertain..the extent of unemployment generally.

>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Fred Shapiro [mailto:fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU]
>Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 10:10 PM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Antedating of "Unemployment"
>
>
>unemployment (OED 1888)
>
>1717 _The Censor_ (ed. 2) III. 191 (Eighteenth Centuryu Collections
>Online)  I may lay all Day on the Solitary Board buried in Dust and
>Obscurity, and owe a Perusal only to the Unemployment of the indolent
>_Waiters_.
>
>Fred Shapiro