More on early txtng

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:25 AM -0400 8/20/10, George Thompson wrote:
>LH writes: (It wouldn't
>>  surprise me if someone found other examples from the newspapers of
>>  the 1820s, when the "O.K." fad was in full flower.)
>
>   I have not ever noticed writing of the b4 u style in the local
>news stories/letters/humor/ads in NYC newspapers, reading chiefly
>ca. 1780-1860.  I don't often read the poetry in the papers, or the
>out-of-town news (though sometimes I am snookered by not realizing
>that an item is from out of town until after I have read it), or the
>political rantings (they had political rantings in the early 19th C,
>too).
>
>Strictly speaking, the O. K. fad was the late 1830s.
>
>GAT

Yes, my error, "O.K." didn't check in before 1839 (according to the
OED, following Read, with the first cites from Boston and Salem
newspapers).  Read (p. 135 of the 2002 _Milestones_ volume, a reprint
of a 1963 piece in _American Speech_) refers to "the craze for using
initials" that "struck Boston in the summer of 1838 and New York in
the summer of 1839", and New Orleans that fall.  He writes (p. 134)
"The background of O.K. was so thoroughly set by the summer of 1838
that it is surprising that the expression was not yet in use, so far
as I can find.  Probably it was delayed by a close forerunner, O.W.,
standing for 'all right', as if spelled _oll wright_ (Boston Morning
Post 18 June 1838, p. 2, col. 1).   I assume his 3/23/1839 Boston
Morning Post cite for "O.K." itself still stands?

LH

>
>George A. Thompson
>Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre",
>Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>Date: Thursday, August 19, 2010 2:32 pm
>Subject: Re: More on early txtng
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
>>  At 2:20 PM -0400 8/19/10, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>  >At 8/19/2010 02:08 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>  >>Sorry, it's 1832, "To Miss Catherine Jay, of Utica"
>>  >
>>  >Good enough to put down the British Library, being before their 1867.
>>  >
>>  >Joel
>>  >
>>  Yup, by a generation. Back when I posted this in 2002, I was
>>  wondering if anyone else had other examples of alphanumeric
>>  proto-texting of the "b4" type from the early 19th c. but nobody
>>  responded.  Of course the quest is still open, and now the prize is
>>  to see by how many years we can antedate those Brits!  (It wouldn't
>>  surprise me if someone found other examples from the newspapers of
>>  the 1820s, when the "O.K." fad was in full flower.)
>>
>>  LH
>>
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>
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