lilypad strategy and sea-basing

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Thu, 1 Sep 2005 12:04:49 -0400, Grant Barrett wrote:

>I did a small entry for this sense of "lily pad" last year and
>defined it as "an outpost, advance camp, foreign base, or staging area":
>
>http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/lily_pad/
>
>No doubt the 1998 first cite can be antedated by our stalwart searchers.

Here's an earlier (non-military) figurative usage of "lily pad":

Wall St Journal, Nov 29, 1988, p. 1 (Proquest)
At Nordson, Mr. Madar has been using what he terms a "lily pad to lily
pad" growth strategy, jumping from one new market to another nearby one
"rather than leap across the pond or into an entirely different pond."

Journal of Commerce, April 26, 1991, p. 5A (Nexis)
The company grew quickly, through what Mr. Madar calls "the lily pad
strategy," where "we hop from one place to another close by."
"If a pad isn't secure, we can hop back," he said.


--Ben Zimmer