House Arrest (1904)

[Chris Waigl]

bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

>---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       bapopik at AOL.COM
>Subject:      House Arrest (1904)
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Martha Stewart complains that life under "house arrest" is just terrible. OED has "house arrest" from 1936.
>...
>Actually, the "house" never gets "arrested."
>...
>Did it start with the Kaiser?
>...
>
>

In German, much earlier. A quick search finds "Hausarrest" in _Der
Hofmeister_ by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz and in _Geschichte der
Abderiten_ by Christoph Martin Wieland. Both were written in 1774.

Always, er, nice if German can contribute to the punitive lexicon of
English.

Chris Waigl
with flashbacks to Gymnasium German class