1955 "-wise" vector; antedatings of "misty" and "Enjoy!"

[Jonathan Lighter]

I'd missed this. Do you have any idea how frequently "-wise" is actually
used in _1984_?

The entire question becomes moot, however, when I consult the HDAS files and
discover this:

1904 Edward W. Townsend _Sure!_ (N.Y.: Dodd, Mead) 94: De show was a winner,
boodle-wise. [I.e., "money-wise"]

So it may be that Madison Avenue got the suffix from Avenue A.
Nevertheless, these "-wise" usages seem to be vanishingly rare in print
before the 1950s. A 1966 quote asserts that college students in Washington,
D.C., were notable users of "-wise" in 1951.  Maybe Orwell picked it up from
some American source and found it particularly loathsome.

JL


On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 11:06 PM, James Harbeck <jharbeck at sympatico.ca>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
> Subject:      Re: 1955 "-wise" vector; antedatings of "misty" and "Enjoy!"
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> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> What effect on all that do you suppose its inclusion as a Newspeak
> adverbial suffix in Orwell's _1984_ (published in 1949) had? Orwell's
> book is at least further evidence of its currency in some circles in
> the late '40s, but does a feedback effect seem at all likely, given
> the negative connotations Newspeak would lend?
>
> James Harbeck.
>
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