"Murphy's Law" antedating 1943 (UNCLASSIFIED)

Tue Oct 6 20:11:37 UTC 2009

You'll always be remembered here as the coiner of "pimpmobile," Wilson.

However, "pimpmobile" is the kind of creation that could have occurred to
multiple great minds in history. "Murphy's Law" ain't.

JL

On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 2:54 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Murphy's Law" antedating 1943 (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > 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:
> >
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >> 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.
> >>
> >>  ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --=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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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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-- 
"There You Go Again...Using Reason on the Planet of the Duck-Billed
Platypus"

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