"AAVE" (the abbrev. itself)

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Tue, Oct 05, 2004 at 03:07:36PM -0400, Joanne M. Despres wrote:
> Unfortunately, there's no antedating in the M-W files.  But I did
> notice a citation in which the author mentions using "BEV" in 1992,
> before "AAVE" had become the common term.

Yes, _BEV_ goes back a lot further--our earliest example is Labov
in 1972 (antedatings to this would also be appreciated!). I
guess it's that when I started reading _AS_ and about AAVE, which
was in the early-mid 1990s, "AAVE" struck me as being well
established.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED