pseudo-etymology of "news"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 12/20/2007 04:59 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>FWIW, my experience is that people like to use the plural when their
>experience is with the the singular only.  If the compass story is
>not a complete invention, it may have actually been used by _a_
>newspaper and noticed by person(s) who then had the original
>etymythobrainstorm(s).
>
>   Note that I'm referring to the existence of the compass symbol,
> not the validity of the folk etymology.

Can anyone cite an early English-language newspaper (home or
colonies) that actually uses a compass illustration?  (And not
French-language, since then the English would have called them neospapers.)

Joel

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