Antedating of Flea Market (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Wilson Gray]

People were once willing to *pay for* fleas?!!! At a time when a
person could acquire them at no charge by merely walking among the
people in a market on his way to the flea-seller's booth?!!! Well, you
did say that these were trained - I assume - fleas meant for circuses.

-Wilson

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 10:56 AM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC
<Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: Antedating of Flea Market (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> The same quote appears in Gale 19th Century newspapers:
>
> Daily Evening Bulletin (San Francisco, CA) Monday, August 17, 1891; pg.
> 4; Issue 112; col C
> Daily Evening Bulletin (San Francisco, CA) Friday, October 16, 1891;
> Issue 8; col H
>
> And the same anecdote, phrased differently, in Gale British Newspapers
> 1600 - 1900:
>
> "PARIS DAY BY DAY"
> The Belfast News-Letter (Belfast, Ireland), Tuesday, July 28, 1891; p. 6
> col 7.
> "There is going on just now near the Barriere de Montreuil, at the
> extreme east end
> of Paris a sale of rubbish, familiarly known to its frequenters by the
> unattractive
> name of the "Flea Market." "
>
>
> Gale 19th Century British Periodicals has an 1856 for "Flea Market", but
> it is literally that -- a market in which fleas are sold for Flea
> Circuses.
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: American Dialect Society
>> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Sam Clements
>> Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 6:09 AM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Antedating of Flea Market
>>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Sam Clements <SClements at NEO.RR.COM>
>> Subject:      Antedating of Flea Market
>> --------------------------------------------------------------
>> -----------------
>>
>> OED and MW11 both have 1922.
>>
>> N'archive has _Janesville(WI) Gazette_  4 November 1891 p, 3/4
>>
>>   "Near the Barriere de Montreuil, in Paris, they have sales
>> of odds and = ends known as the "flea market."  A woman
>> recently bought a dilapidated = old mattress and, cutting it
>> open, found 14,000 francs in gold."
>>
>> Sam Clements
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
> Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
 -Sam'l Clemens

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