wild about Rappaccini's daughter

[Wilson Gray]

Right. Merican would be "stone crazy." ;-)

-Wilson

On Feb 13, 2008 10:36 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: wild about Rappaccini's daughter
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 2/13/2008 09:38 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >OED has "wild," 11.c, from Jane Austen "a1817."  Yet it lacks any
> >U.S. exx. (as far as I can tell) and has no ex. constr. with "about"
> >till 1868.  Tsk.
> >
> >   1844 Nathaniel Hawthorne in _The United States Democratic
> > Review_  (Dec.) 549: You have heard of this daughter, whom all the
> > young men in Padua are wild about.
>
> Hmph!  How did I miss that in my thorough reading of all of
> Hawthorne's short stories about 5 years ago?  (I'm waiting anxiously
> for Hawthorne's "salt" = experienced sailor to enter OED3, antedating
> Dana's _Two Years Before the Mast_ by five years.)
>
> But a search of the OED2 CD-ROM turns up, under "stark, a. and adv.":
>
> a1721 Prior _Poems, Cromwell & Porter_ 281 You may study among the
> Law givers without being stark wild about Ordinances and Proclamations.
>
> Not American, though.
>
> Joel
>
>
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