Origin of "Back to Square One"

[Fred Shapiro]

The OED has launched a high-profile appeals list directed at eliciting
antedatings and etymological discoveries for a small roster of important
terms, in conjuntion with a forthcoming BBC television show.  One of the
items on the list is "back to square one" (1960).  JSTOR yields the
following antedating, which is a very interesting one because it makes the
provenance of the phrase quite clear:

"The writer ... has the problem of maintaining the interest of a reader
who is being always sent back to square one in a sort of intellectual game
of snakes and ladders."
        _Economic Journal_, volume 62, page 411 (1952)

Fred R. Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
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