"Nor'easter" -- missing definition? and an antedating

[Jonathan Lighter]

Literary? Then how explain customary nautical pronunciations "nor'east,"
"nor'west," "nor'nor'west," etc.?

Not to mention bo's'n and fo'c's'l.

JL

On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Nor'easter" -- missing definition? and an antedating
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Merriam-Webster, and etymological discussion (with refs) from Wikipedia.
>
> m a m
> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
>
> m-w online:
> Main Entry:
> Function: noun
> Date: 1774
>
> 1 : a strong northeast wind
> 2 or nor'=C2=B7east=C2=B7er : a storm with northeast winds
>
> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
>
> Wikipedia:
> University of Pennsylvania linguistics professor Mark Liberman has pointed
> out that while the OED cites examples dating back to 1837, they represent
> the contributions of a handful of non-New England poets and writers.
> Liberman posits that "nor=E2=80=99Easter" may have originally been a
> litera=
> ry
> affectation, akin to "e'en" for "even" and "th'only" for "the only," which
> is an indication in spelling that two syllables count for only one position
> in metered verse, with no implications for actual pronunciation.[9]
>
> However, despite these assertions the term can be found in the writings of
> New Englanders going back at least to the 19th century. Thomas Bailey
> Aldrich writing in his semi-autobiographical work The Story of the Bad
> Boy(1870) "We had had several slight flurries of hail and snow before, but
> this was a regular nor'easter."[1]. In "The Gray Goth"(1869) Elizabeth
> Stuart Phelps Ward wrote "...and there was snow in the sky now, setting in
> for a regular nor'easter."[2] Usage existed into the 20th century in the
> form of current event description("In spite of a heavy "nor'easter," the
> worst that has visited the New England coast in years, the hall was
> crowded=
> "
> - 1908 [3]), historical reference ("In December of 1778, the Federal brig
> General Arnold, Magee master and twelve Barnstable men among the crew,
> drov=
> e
> ashore on the Plymouth flats during a furious nor'easter, the "Magee storm"
> that mariners, for years after, used as a date to reckon from."(1917)[4])
> and ("common contraction for northeaster" (1959)[5] & "During this battle,
> the dreaded, disagreeable and destructive Northeaster rages over the New
> England, the Middle States, and southward. No Nor'easter ever occurs except
> when there is a high barometer headed off and driven down upon Nova Scotia
> and Lower Canada" (1878)[6]).
>
>
> ----
>
>   1. ^ a b c d e f g Multi-Community Environmental Storm Observatory
> (2006). "Nor'easters".
>      . http://www.mcwar.org/NorEasters.pdf
>      . Retrieved 2008-01-22.
>   2. ^ a b Storm-E (2007). "Nor'easters"
>      . http://www3.cet.edu/weather2/h17.html
>      . Retrieved 2008-01-22.
>   3. ^ How stuff works (2006). "What are nor'easters?"
>      . http://science.howstuffworks.com/question595.htm
>      . Retrieved 2008-01-22.
>   4. ^ Weather channel (2007). "Nor'easters"
>      . Weather Channel.
> http://www.weather.com/encyclopedia/winter/noreast.html
>      . Retrieved 2008-01-22.
>   5. ^ Ansted. A Dictionary of Sea Terms, Brown Son & Ferguson, Glasgow,
> 1933
>   6. ^ http://www.soundingsonline.com
>   7. ^ "Talk of the Town"
>      . The New Yorker, issue of 5 September 2005.
>   8. ^ Jan Freeman, "The Word"
>      . The Boston Globe, issue of 21 December 2003.
>   9. ^ Mark Liberman, "Nor'easter considered fake"
>      . Language Log, 25 January 2004.
>
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