Antedating of "Pastrami"

[Fred Shapiro]

Unless I have missed something, I think the OED3's 1920 citation is the
earliest for the spelling "pastrami," with other spellings traced back to
1912.  Here's a 1916 hit for "pastrami" on Newspaperarchive:

1916 _Syracuse Herald_ 16 Jan. 5 (Newpaperarchive)
Even so, Zapp, there's lots of fellers in the delicatessen business which
is obliged to run automobile deliveries, and for every penny they've got
to pay more on gasoline, they stick two cents a pound on pastrami oder
Frankfurters.

Fred Shapiro


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

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