Christmas Eve Antedating : "Humbug"

Shapiro, Fred fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
Fri Dec 25 00:11:32 UTC 2009


humbug (OED 1751)

1750 _The Adventures of Mr. Loveill_ 197 (Eighteenth Century Collections Online)  That species of wit some time since laugh'd out of the world by Mr. Addison, under the name of _Bite_, and now reviv'd among the polite world, under that of _Humbug_.


Fred Shapiro

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



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