Antedating of "baseball" (except Jane Austen)

[Joel S. Berson]

Well, all I assumed is that it was earlier than OED3.  You presumably
have searched EANewspapers; as I wrote previously, I did not.

As for searches in EAN, the last I attempted was for "parado" (with
an O), between 1830 and 1900.  Many, many hits--but the dozen or so I
sampled towards the end of that period were all "parade" (with an
E)--with an excruciatingly slow page display. Also, none highlighted
(EAN sometimes does highlight).  I quit a slow, useless search
(unless I am missing something in EAN to inform it that I want a
final O, not an E), to return to my primary project--Hawthorne's use
of 18th century newspapers.  I will submit the "parado", 1833, that I
encountered there, and found via microfilm.  EAN missed it (although
perhaps because it does not contain the relevant newspaper).

Joel

At 2/28/2006 11:16 AM, you wrote:
>You seem to be assuming that 1861 is extremely early in the history of the
>American game.  In fact baseball was organized in the U.S. in 1845, 1861
>is somewhat far along in the history of the American game, there are 223
>pre-1861 hits for "base ball" in the New York Times alone, almost all of
>which are probably referring to the American game.  I assume that your
>1861 occurrence refers to the American game.
>
>Fred Shapiro

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