dollar-a-year men

[Joel S. Berson]

So we can set bounds.  John Baker wrote he's 45, and knew the term; how old
are you, Joanne?

Joel

At 7/11/2005 11:28 AM, you wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       "Joanne M. Despres" <jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM>
>Subject:      Re: dollar-a-year men
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Funny you should mention it.  A few weeks ago I encountered the
>word while reading Dos Passos' _1919_ and had no idea what it
>meant.  It was obvious that one dollar wasn't much "jack" in 1919,
>though, and that the men referred to were educated and well-off, so
>eventually I sort of figured out that it meant an upper-class WWI
>volunteer.  It came across in context as a lower-class slang (of
>which there's a fair amount in the book).
>
>If I'd seen the word out of context, though, it would have made no
>sense at all!
>
>Joanne
>
>On 11 Jul 2005, at 7:59, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>
> > On Jul 11, 2005, at 6:25 AM, John Baker wrote:
> >
> > >         I believe that "dollar-a-year men" refers to the former
> > > practice
> > > of wealthy individuals serving in government posts for the nominal
> > > annual salary of $1.
> > >
> > > Arnold M. Zwicky:
> > >
> > > no, i'm not offering this as a novel expression, or tryting to
> > > antedate
> > > it.  just an observation that it might not be understood by today's
> > > readers.  here's George Packer in The New Yorker, 7/4/05, p. 52:...
> >
> > sorry.  i should have added that i was not asking for a definition;
> > i'm old enough to remember dollar-a-year men (by the way, weren't
> > there *any* dollar-a-year women?).  what i was wondering about was
> > what those of a less advanced age might make of the expression.
> >
> > arnold