Query: "Middle Manager"

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Thu, Feb 02, 2006 at 04:11:23PM -0500, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >On Thu, Feb 02, 2006 at 02:44:50PM -0500, Loren Fox wrote:
> >> I am a business journalist/student looking for the earliest
> >> appearance of the term "middle manager" or "middle management." (I
> >> know Merriam-Webster first added "middle management" to its
> >> dictionary in 1948, but I assume the term appeared earlier.) Thank
> >> you.
> >
> >The earliest example in the OED, which seems to have
> >popularized the term,
>
> Truthiness in advertising!  I first read Jesse as crediting the OED
> (and not the book title) with having popularized "middle management".
> On second reading, I'm prepared to concede that no promotional stunt
> was intended, along the lines of "A Million Little Lexical Entries"...

Hey, get me a few million dollars and a spot on Oprah, and I'll
tell you the OED invented sliced bread.

Jesse Sheidlower

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org