Mixed Bathing (East Texas); Mixed Swimming (West Texas)

[David A. Daniel]

Eighteenth/nineteenth century? You're kidding, right? Here we are in 2007
and I guarantee you that I, along with another billion Anglophones, say
bathing suit in equal proportion to swim suit. And you never saw a Hollywood
"bathing beauty" movie? Esther Williams was not a swimming beauty she was a
bathing beauty. Or am I missing something... ?
DAD



"Bathing" was commonly used in NYC in the late 18th CM & early 19th C for
situations where we would be likely to write "swimming".
As for "mixing" --
        Brighton. -- On Saturday last the most novel scene presented itself
at this celebrated watering place, ever beheld in this country.  On the
evening and night previous, from two to three hundred carriages of all
descriptions arrived there, and the next day was seen about noon, between
four and five hundred persons of different ages and sexes, but in suitable
dresses, within the distance of one mile, all bathing promiscuously
together.
        N-Y Evening Post, August 6, 1811, p. 3, col. 3

GAT





George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ.
Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: Barry Popik <bapopik at GMAIL.COM>
Date: Friday, August 31, 2007 12:43 pm
Subject: Mixed Bathing (East Texas); Mixed Swimming (West Texas)
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU


> "Mixed bathing"/"Mixed swimming" is not in DARE, OED? Anyone have any
> thoughts about the distinction made here?
> ...
> ...
> ...
> (Google Books)
>  <i>Riding the Wind of God:</i>
> <i>A Personal History of the Youth Revival Movement</i>
> by Bruce McIver
> Smyth & Helwys Publishing, Inc.
> 2002
> Pg. 200
> ..."What about mixed bathing?" ("mixed bathing" in East Texas; "mixed
> swimming" in West Texas!)...
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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

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