blind item (1937)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

A staple of the gossip pages (particularly the New York Post's Page Six)
is the "blind item" -- a piece of veiled gossip with names removed, often
slyly phrased as a question (e.g., "Which newly married actor isn't so
faithful?").  Gawker.com culls the Post's blind items and lets readers
guess the intended subjects:

http://www.gawker.com/news/culture/blind-items/

Not surprisingly, "blind items" go back to the rise of Hollywood
gossip-mongering in the '30s...

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1937 _Washington Post_ 7 Mar. VII3/1 No form of Hollywood gossip is half
so vicious as those "blind items" which are passed along to you
surreptitiously over the luncheon table and behind closed doors.  Your
informer, of course, would be violating the most sacred confidence -- oh,
not for the world would he confide names, so makes matters far worse by
leaving it to your imagination.
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1939 _Nevada State Journal_ 5 May 4/6 [Walter Winchell On Broadway] Do me
a favor, please. Don't run blind items. Name names.
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"Blind item" is a blind spot for the OED and the other major dictionaries.
 I don't even see this particular sense of "blind", though it's somewhat
related to "blind" = 'unsigned' (as in "blind advertisement").  The OED
does have an intriguing cite that suggests the sense could be very old
indeed:

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1699 BENTLEY Phal. Pref. 64 He insinuates a blind Story about something
and somebody.
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But "blind story" is defined by the OED as 'one without point' rather than
'one with names concealed', so perhaps this is just a blind alley.


--Ben Zimmer