"Soldier"

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:00 PM -0500 3/1/09, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>I'm unclear what is a "technical context".  The word 'marine" goes
>back to 1672, of course (OED).  In American newspapers going back to
>1704 (the first year of the first American newspaper) there are
>articles using the term taken from English newspapers.
>
>In 1706 Joseph Dudley, the governor of Massachusetts, issued "A
>PROCLAMATION, For the better Regulation of Seamen and
>Marines."  Boston News-Letter, 1706 Nov. 4, page 3.  [EAN]  This
>clearly originated in America, and distinguishes sailors from
>"soldiers" -- although it applies to the marines of the royal navy.

Yes, but to continue my earlier perhaps tendentious line, if my bag
of Purina says it's for cats and kittens, or if the sign in the
department store reads "SHOES AND SLIPPERS", that doesn't prove that
kittens aren't cats or that slippers aren't shoes.  That's the
problem with autohyponymy.

LH

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