like sardines in a can

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 12:11:20 -0500, Barnhart <barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM> wrote:

>OED: 1911 packed like sardines in a box
>
>OED: 1922 [Dialect Notes]  However, if one fishes around in the electronic
>edition, there is _packed like sardines_ in Harper's Magazine (April 1887).
>
>But, I stumbled across the following:
>
>We passed a most miserable night.  We lay down as best we could, and were
>packed like sardines in a box.  All wanted to sleep; but if one man moved,
>he woke half a dozen others, who again in waking roused all the rest; so
>seelp was, like our supper, onlyu to be enjoyed in imagination, and aall
>we could do was to wait intently for daylight.
>J.D. Borthwick, _To California Via Panama_, London: 1857, in _Pictures of
>Gold Rush California_, Chicago: Lakeside Press, 1949, Chapter 2 p 49
>
>For me, sardines come packed in a can.  So, the expression ought to read
>for modern contexts "[packed] like sardines in a can."  It's not in OED.
>
>The earliest quote I've found so far for this is:
>
>"Butrning cotton is one of the most stubborn fires to extinguish," said
>assistant fire chief W.B. Cooper.  "And that boxcar was packed like
>sardines in a can."  _Daily Journal_ [Commerce, Texas], Sept. 16, 1957, p 1

Proquest is still down, but Cornell's Making of America has this:

--------
http://tinyurl.com/3hwaf
Conneau, Théophile.
Captain Canot; or, Twenty years of an African slaver; 1854.
Page 74

I found it impossible to adjust the whole in a sitting posture; but we
made them lie down in each other's laps, like sardines in a can, and in
this way obtained space for the entire cargo.

Also reprinted in:
http://tinyurl.com/4leu8
"Twenty Years in the Slave-Trade", p. 163
The North American review. / Volume 80, Issue 166, January 1855
--------


--Ben Zimmer