"Base ball", (2)

[Mark Mandel]

Dear me, how can they have missed that? And they have quotations from
"c1815" all the way up to 1911!

c1815 JANE AUSTEN Northang. Abb. i. (1848) 3 It was not very wonderful
that Catherine..should prefer cricket, base ball..to books.

1911 H. HARRISON Queed xviii. 225 On the following Saturday,..he took
Miss Weyland to another base-ball game.

But tsk, tsk! The only alternate spelling provided is "base-ball",
whilst fully half of their quotations (not counting the double
Chadwick) spell it as two words, "base ball", even in the compounds
"base( )baller" and "base( )ballist".

m a m

On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 1:01 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
> The OED says for "baseball":
>
> "The national field-game of the United States, a more elaborate
> variety of the English 'rounders,' played by two sides of nine each;
> so called from the 'bases' or bounds (usually four in number) which
> mark the circuit to be taken by each player of the in-side after
> striking the ball."
>
> "Bounds"? Â "Usually" four? Â The "in-side"? Â Does the definition need rewording?
>
> Joel

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