antedating?: "top dollar" (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Jonathan Lighter]

Outstanding, Bill.

  JL

"Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC"
Subject: Re: antedating?: "top dollar"
(UNCLASSIFIED)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

Better to light a candle than curse google books . . .

[classified ad], _Marion [Ohio] Star_, 3/27/1916, p. 17 col 2.
"$ Top Dollar Paid $ Timber Wanted Good oak timber wanted at all times."



> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jeff Prucher
> Sent: Monday, April 23, 2007 12:09 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: antedating?: "top dollar"
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jeff Prucher
> Subject: Re: antedating?: "top dollar"
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------
>
> --- Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: Benjamin Zimmer
> > Subject: Re: antedating?: "top dollar"
> >
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------
> >
> > On 4/23/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > >
> > > OED has 1970, but Google Books cites an issue of
> _Trucking Business_
> > > from no later than 1964:
> > >
> > > "With all that work you put in... Why aren't you drawing
> top dollar?"
> > >
> > > Google Books asserts that the latest issue they scanned
> is from that year.
> >
> > Why would we believe anything Google Books asserts at this point?
> > Searching on years in that volume of _Trucking Business_ finds
> > references in nearby pages to a company's 1967 earnings and to
> > industry projections for 1968. So 1967 seems a more likely bet.
>
> Assuming that Google is actually searching in the same issue
> when you use "search in this book", the issue might be March 1968:
> http://tinyurl.com/yprsp2.
> But I'm not at all convinced that this is a reasonable
> assumption, since I was also able to find a header for Feb.
> 1968 by searching around in the same issue.
>
> There is another hit in Trucking Business for "top dollar",
> which is given as "... tri times were cut by as much as 10
> per cen Across-the-board benefits to the drive the fleet
> operator and his customer. Top-dollar ..." on the results
> page. The snippet shown, however, does not include any
> relevant text. (What on earth are they thinking?) That issue
> may be from 1967, but I've gotten headers for both January
> and April of that year, so make of that what you will.
>
> Jeff Prucher
>
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Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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