cougar (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Jeff Prucher]

----- Original Message ----
> From: "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Grant says:
>
> "In hunting cougars - the term, not the women or the wild cats - I found
> a March 3, 2001, article in the Globe and Mail of Toronto which credits
> "cougar" to a Canadian website called Cougardate.com, which the story
> says was started in 1999. . . . So, 1999 is the earliest probable date
> we have for the term and it's fairly reliable."
>
> The article itself is somewhat ambiguous:
>
> "Five weeks ago, Elspeth Sage and Elizabeth Vander Zaag, two
> first-generation cougars from the West Coast, launched an Internet
> dating service at http://www.cougardate.com, for cougars and prey of all
> ages."
>
> Later it says:  "The site was originally created three years ago when,
> according to the Vancouver Sun, Sage's nephew called the pair a couple
> of stereotypical cougars."
>
> So, was it created 5 weeks or 3 years prior to Mar 3 2001?  There is a
> reference in google groups to "cougardate" in Feb 2001.

Looks like the website was registered in June 2000:
http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/cougardate.com

Jeff Prucher

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