a slur upon the name of Thompson

[Stephen Goranson]

Quoting "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>:

> Searching for <<Thompson's news>> at G-Books:
>
> 1852: <<"Molly," said her mistress, smiling, "you are a good hand at
> telling us John Thompson's news; that is, anything we know ourselves.">>
>
> 1855: <<We promised in our last number an extended review of this work;
> but its large circulation, and the copious extracts which have been made
> from its pages in the newspapers of the day, renders this not only
> unnecessary, but would make us amenable to the charge of obtruding
> 'JOHNNY THOMPSON'S news' upon the public.>>
>
> 1859: <<'JOHNNY THOMPSON'S news!'>>
>
> 1869: <<"'You cannot say,' and 'the leading incidents are clear and
> simple,' and 'the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,'
> and -- and the old critical jargon, John Thompson's news. ....">>
>
> 1873: <<IT is, perhaps, a genuine piece of Thompson's news to inform the
> public, especially that portion of it that reads the CATHOLIC RECORD,
> that there was lately held in this country the sixth penodical
> convention of religious nondescripts known as the Evangelical Alliance.>>
>
> 1879: <<Unless, as is very improbable, some distinct new therapeusis is
> reached, clinical discussions of the fever must partake of the nature of
> John Thompson's news.>>
>
> 1918: <<yet, as Dr. C. G. Jung has pointed out, it might be well even
> for psychoanalysts to read what has been said earlier in English and in
> French on these subjects. If this suggestion were followed we would
> perhaps hear that a large part of the Freudian discovery is "Johnny
> Thompson's news.">>
>
> So "[John[ny]] Thompson's news" seems to mean "old news".
>
> Not in my slang dictionaries!
>
> It can also be found as "[John] Thomson's news", I think.
>
> It will take some work to identify the original "John Thom[p]son", maybe!
>
> -- Doug Wilson

Headline: "John Thompson's News"; Article Type: News/Opinion
Paper: Republican Advocate; Date: 01-21-1803, Friday; Volume: I; Issue:
8; Page:
[2]; col. 3. Location: Fredericktown, Maryland [America's Historical
Newspapers]

"John Thompson's News"
So notorious has the little federal paper here become for _fibbing_, that
whenever the Boys about town express their belief that any thing is
_not true_,
they say it is "_John Thompson's News_," thereby intimating, that there is no
more reliance to be placed upon it, than upon the information generally
contained in the newspaper printed by Mr. Thompson.

Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson

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