"Murphy's Law" antedating 1943 (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Wilson Gray]

Well, you never know. Though I invented the term, "pimpmobiie," in
1963, it wasn't until the '90's that I ever saw it in print - without
attribution, needless to say. Unfortunately, my sole witness died of
cirrhosis of the liver some dekkids ago.

-Wilson

On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 12:31 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Murphy's Law" antedating 1943 (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Dave is correct. I'm skeptical of the cites simply because these new
> exx.  sound "too good to be true."
>
> People who publish their diaries decades later have an annoying habit of
> doing minor verbal editing that can drive lexicographers crazy.
>
> This principle was suggested to me years ago in Charles R. Bond's _Flying
> Tiger's Diary_  (Texas A & M Press, 1984).  Bond writes (p. 211):
>
> "August. 12, 1942
> Was up at 4:30, had coffee by lantern light, rode to the field in an RAF
> 'dune buggy.'"
>
> AFAICT from Google Books "dune buggy" is a 1950s coinage, possibly sugg. by
> the syn. "beach buggy," making it slightly earlier than I had thought.
> "Dune buggies" became to national attention in the early '60s. (OED online
> has 1964, but Newspaper Archive turns them up from 1956 on. There is a
> "beach buggy" from 1935, but it's just an old taxi. A 1939 "beach
> buggy" is more like a toy.)
>
> Anyway, the chances are that Bond's "dune buggy" was a "Bren-gun carrier," =
> a
> widely used vehicle more easily beheld than described:
>
> http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=3Dhttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia=
> /commons/b/b3/A_Bren_Gun_Carrier_brings_in_a_batch_of_German_prisoners.jpg&=
> imgrefurl=3Dhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Bren_Gun_Carrier_bring=
> s_in_a_batch_of_German_prisoners.jpg&h=3D661&w=3D696&sz=3D83&tbnid=3DCdbQA0=
> FuIZS4LM:&tbnh=3D132&tbnw=3D139&prev=3D/images%3Fq%3D%2522bren%2Bgun%2Bcarr=
> ier%2522&hl=3Den&usg=3D__-g2kEMB_VgP7NXesSvfjd9F-Jfk=3D&ei=3DZG7LSonVMKGutg=
> flsaHpAQ&sa=3DX&oi=3Dimage_result&resnum=3D4&ct=3Dimage
>
> Of course I can't _prove_ that Bond didn't write "dune buggy" in 1942, but
> if he did he was a linguistic visionary of a high order. My tentative belie=
> f
> is that the "Murphy's Law" memoirists would fall into the same
> category.FWIW, I have never come across an ex. of "Murphy's Law" used even
> retroactively in any earlier memoir or first-person fiction about WWII.
> Surely such a handy, expressive term, had it been in use at all, should hav=
> e
> spread widely and quickly.
>
>
> JL
>
> On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 11:09 AM, Dave Wilton <dave at wilton.net> wrote:
>
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Dave Wilton <dave at WILTON.NET>
>> Subject:      Re: "Murphy's Law" antedating 1943 (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>>
>> No, "air force" was a reasonably common term during WWII. Common usage
>> doesn't follow the dictates of official nomenclature.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
>> Of
>> Mullins, Bill AMRDEC
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2009 7:36 AM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: "Murphy's Law" antedating 1943 (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>
>> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
>> Caveats: NONE
>>
>> Does the fact that there was no "Air Force" as such in 1943 call this
>> into question?  -- It was the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1943, I believe.
>>
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>
>
> --=20
> "There You Go Again...Using Reason on the Planet of the Duck-Billed
> Platypus"
>
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--
-Wilson
–––
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.
–Mark Twain

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