"The Buck Stops Here" (ca. 1930)

[Jonathan Lighter]

Am pretty sure I quit skimming the magazine after 1937.

JL

Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Fred Shapiro
Subject: Re: "The Buck Stops Here" (ca. 1930)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quoting Jonathan Lighter :

> Long ago I was at NYPL examining back issues of a long-defunct
> monthly called "Our Army," from which I retrieved a number of useful
> early citations, many of which wound up in OED2 without
> acknowledgment. But that's cool....
>
> Anyhow, one issue of said magazine some time in the '30s included a
> short story which alluded to a top segeant on whose desk top was a
> little plaque bearing the motto, "The Buck Stops Here," a saying now
> universally associated with Pres. Harry S Truman in the period
> 1945-52.
>
> Well (Fred will get a chuckle out of this), I foolishly neglected to
> note this citation. Mea magna culpa ! ("My large bad !") But it's
> there in the pages of "Our Army" for anyone with the time and energy
> to look for it.
>
> My best guess of the date would be the early to mid '30s.

How to drive a quotation dictionary compiler crazy (at least the one
quotation dictionary compiler trying to be comprehensive and accurate)...

If anyone with access to "Our Army" for the 1930s is willing to look for
the item described by Jonathan Lighter, I would of course be most grateful.

Fred Shapiro


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