Credit to Barry Popik (UNCLASSIFIED)
Joel S. Berson
Berson at ATT.NET
Thu Jan 17 15:14:37 UTC 2008
At 1/16/2008 05:06 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
>Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
>Caveats: NONE
>
>Barry, I believe, took the phrase back to 1822.
>
>Gale's Eighteenth Century Collections Online has
>the phrase appearing as early as 1706. It may
>have been a cliché for quite a while when Bulwer-Lytton got ahold of it.
Will they have to rename the competition? And,
Bill, tell us who the new, 1706 eponym will be!
Joel
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