"covered wagon", 1754, and not the American West

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Jul 6, 2008, at 8:39 AM, David Donnell wrote:

> FWIW, "machine", or something that sounds like it, is the Persian
> word I know for car/automobile...
>
> (Not sure how off-topic that is. At least it's a similar sense of the
> word "machine".)

OED has the 'automobile' sense (III.5.h), marked as originally and
chiefly U.S.  it probably should be marked as now longer current.
(the most recent cite is someone quoting his grandfather's usage, and
the one before that has "machines" in a sense wide enough to take in
tractors.  before that, it's Dashiell Hammett in 1929.)

my pennsylvania dutch grandmother had this usage, back in the 40s and
50s.

arnold

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