"thousand-yard stare" (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Wilson Gray]

FWIW, at one time, "thousand-yard stare" was so hip that a
science-fiction author whose name I can no longer recall used it in
the modified form, "thousand-parsec stare" in a story whose title I
can no longer recall in an sf mag whose name I can no longer recall.

Photos of the thousand-yard stare by David Douglas Duncan

http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/collections/photography/holdings/

http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0405/ddd01.html

-Wilson

On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 10:56 AM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "thousand-yard stare" (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The appearance - in big print - in Harper's must have helped assure the
> term's permamence.
>
> JL
>
> On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 10:31 AM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC <
> Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
>
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>> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
>> Subject:      Re: "thousand-yard stare" (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>
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>> >
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>> > > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>> > > Subject:      "thousand-yard stare"
>> > >
>> > >
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > ----------
>> > >
>> > > Should the OED add "thousand-yard stare"?  Wikipedia's article of
>> > > that name dates it to the title of a Life Magazine painting in 1944
>> > > (although that used "2,000").  Google Books gives about 57 results
>> > > before 1951, all snippets, and some journals and so needing
>> > verification.
>> > >
>> > >
>>
>>
>> Wikipedia was wrong (surprise!).  Tom Lea's painting appears in the June
>> 11 1945 issue of Life:
>>
>> http://books.google.com/books?id=_EkEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA61&dq=%22tom%20lea%2
>> 2&as_pt=MAGAZINES&pg=PA65#v=onepage&q=%22tom%20lea%22&f=false
>>
>> and is not titled there.   I've tried to straighten up the wiki a
>> little, but it would take a bigger re-write than I will do to really fix
>> it.
>>
>>
>> Legit 1944 cites:
>>
>> [no author given; interview with George E. Jones, UP war correspondent]
>> "War Reporter Home to Rest,"_Oregonian_ [Portland OR] 4/6/1944 p 9 col 2
>> "And they have that 'thousand-yard stare' a look of utter fatigue, as if
>> somebody had placed a film over their eyes."
>>
>> Hansford Martin, "Thousand-yard stare"  [short story] _Harper's
>> Magazine_ v. 189 (November 1944) p. 523-8
>>
>>
>>
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>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
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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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