"Black Friday," again

[Baker, John]

        Bonnie, do you have the text of the 1982 ABC News usage?

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Bonnie Taylor-Blake
Sent: Friday, November 24, 2006 7:19 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: "Black Friday," again

We've previously discussed when "Black Friday" may have first become
attached to the day after Thanksgiving Day (and what significance the
term held to those who did the attaching), so I won't go over old ground
[1].

I was a little surprised to see, then, that the Wikipedia page on this
term
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_%28shopping%29) includes the
following mention of a 1922 usage.  (Incidentally, this snippet appears
in the "Accounting Practice" portion of the page.)

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Earliest citation, speaking to the Friday after Thanksgiving:

A BLACK FRIDAY.
There have been many Black Fridays in recent history. Most of them have
been days of financial panic. There has been none of blacker foreboding
than last Friday. And the blackness is not loss or fear of loss in
stocks and bonds.
New York Times (1857-Current file).
New York, N.Y.: Dec 3, 1922. pg. 38, 1 pgs

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In fact, that *New York Times* article has nothing really to do with
"the Friday after Thanksgiving," but instead describes diplomatic
reaction (or lack thereof) on Friday, 1 December 1922 to the formal
announcement in Lausanne of a decree calling for the expulsion of Greeks
from Turkey.  (The first two paragraphs of the piece follow.)

In the end, there's no mention of Thanksgiving Day.  The closest we come
to that holiday is that 1 December was technically the day after
Thanksgiving here in the States.

-- Bonnie

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A BLACK FRIDAY.

There have been many Black Fridays in recent history.  Most of them have
been days of financial panic.  There has been none of blacker foreboding
than last Friday.  And the blackness is not loss or fear of loss in
stocks and bonds.  It is the blackness of loss of home, the blackness of
exile and suffering and the peril of death.  But that which deepens the
darkness that has come upon the earth in the broad daylight of the
twentieth century is civilization's prompt acceptance of the Turks'
decree of banishment not only of a million Greeks, but incidentally of
all Christian minorities within the Turkish realm beyond the Hellespont,
which the Aryan crossed over three thousand years ago.  Light blackens
such a blot.  Lord CURZON but urged that the Greeks be gotten out as
quickly as possible in order to escape massacre.
For the rest there was, so far as reported, only quiet acquiescence.

Meanwhile, the dispatches from Washington of the same date report that
the Administration believes that the United States "is not without
influence at Lausanne," that not only the Allies but the Turkish
representatives appear to be "wholly satisfied" with the part that the
United States is playing at Lausanne, and that the very latest reports
from Ambassador CHILD enable the Department of State to draw the
conclusion that the work of the "gathering"
at Lausanne is "proceeding satisfactorily."  Let us assume that the
"very latest reports" do not include the happenings of Friday.  If the
Government were knowingly "wholly satisfied" with that day's record,
then black were white.  It is inconceivable that the American people can
be "wholly satisfied" with our part as the Turks are reported to be.

[Etc.]

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[1] Earliest printed sightings of "Black Friday" in the sense of what a
traffic and shopping nightmare the day holds seem to date to the
mid-1970s; the earliest sighting I've now come across for the sense of
"putting businesses' ledgers back into black" is a 26 November 1982
broadcast of ABC News's "World News Tonight."

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