"Miss Television" in 1933 (UNCLASSIFIED)

[William Salmon]

> Google Books returns a 1930 hit for the phrase "Miss Television".  As
> always, it's hard to confirm a
> date there (the cite is from "The Century Monthly Magazine"), but
> searching within the volume for
> "1929" and "1930" returns hits, and "1931" and "1932" do not, so I'm
> inclined to believe that it's
> legit.
>
> Perhaps "Miss Television" had particular meaning back then.

The citation for "Miss Television" from "The Century Monthly Magazine"
is actually from a short story of Fitzgerald's from 1928 entitled
"OUTSIDE THE CABINET-MAKER'S". Fitzgerald must have recycled it into
TITN later, as he often did.

Google books doesn't give you the rest of the info, but Gutenberg books
of Australia has a copy of the story itself and publication info:
http://gutenberg.net.au/fsf/OUTSIDE%20THE%20CABINET-MAKERS.txt

A further historical note. Fitzgerald had worked as a screenwriter prior
to the publication of TITN. This was something he did periodically in
the later years of his life to pay the bills while he worked on his
novels, especially TITN and The Last Tycoon. However, he didn't approve
of the work and thought it was insincere and not art and so on. This
seems to correspond to the mood of the "Miss Television" scene in TITN:

>     Dick saw her with an inevitable sense of disappointment.
> It took him a moment to respond to the unguarded sweetness of
> her smile, her body calculated within a millimeter to suggest
> a bud yet guarantee a flower. He was conscious of the print
> of her wet foot on a rug through the bathroom door.
>     "Miss Television" he said with a lightness he did not feel.

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