Yet Further Antedating of "Restaurant"

[victor steinbok]

Fred, you're clearly ahead of your time. A part of the problem is that
these databases are fairly expensive and not even all legal libraries
have access to more than one, let alone individuals. Yet, I've found
some very interesting stuff in legal databases in the past, as,
apparently have you. I am sorry if I've swept everyone under the same
rug--no slight was intended.

VS-)

On 3/13/10, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Yet Further Antedating of "Restaurant"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Victor,
>
> I should add that I have also used legal databases to search for quotations
> and proverbs.  Legal databases were among the many online sources I used in
> compiling The Yale Book of Quotations, and I used Lexis and Westlaw a lot in
> compiling the Oxford Dictionary of American Legal Quotations.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Shapiro, Fred [fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU]
> Sent: Saturday, March 13, 2010 9:12 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Yet Further Antedating of "Restaurant"
>
> Victor,
>
> Perhaps other people have been neglecting legal sources for antedatings, but
> I've been searching Lexis since 1978 for antedatings.  In fact, the first
> use of any online database for historical lexicography was by me, searching
> Lexis for the earliest usage of the word "mootness," in 1978.  Since then, I
> have also used Westlaw, HeinOnline, Making of Modern Law, Justis, and
> various congressional and parliamentary databases extensively to find
> antedatings.  The latest edition of Black's Law Dictionary has 10,000 dates
> of first use supplied by me based almost entirely on database searching.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of victor
> steinbok [aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM]
> Sent: Saturday, March 13, 2010 8:56 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Yet Further Antedating of "Restaurant"
>
> Well, you got me beat. I was just about to post a 1820 cite from
> Plaifair's Real France, Not Lady Morgan's France (or something to that
> effect--I am on a very slow connection today so I can't verify
> quickly). There is one quirk about the book--the title page says 1820,
> but several catalogs say 1819. I was going to get back to it tomorrow,
> but thought I should mention it now since you already have a 1819
> cite.
>
> I also have a couple of possible 1815 and 1818 cites, but I need more
> time to verify them (24 hours)--unless someone gets to them first.
>
> There are also some 18th century citations, but these don't really
> count as they are dictionaries. Well, that's true in most cases, but
> one is an Italian-English dictionary and I have not been able to
> verify which side has the right entry (or, possibly a French
> definition of one of the entries). In any case, dictionaries may have
> to set up the cultural environment, but they don't count in
> antedating.
>
> There is also some duality in the dictionaries. Some only have the
> translation as "restorative", others give a more eleborate explanation
> that seems to suggest the modern sense of "restaurant".
>
> I do have a question--is there any reason why so many people are
> focusing on periodicals without checking the books? I am often guilty
> of going the other way, although it's been made a lot easier to cover
> both bases since I discovered that Boston PL network has access to
> EAN.
>
> Still one area remains completely unexplored--not just for the
> individual words that have been coming through ADS-L all this time,
> but also for proverbs, quotations, etc.--and, as far as I can tell,
> most dictionaries don't follow in this direction either. Quite often
> what does not appear in periodicals, other than slang, may well pop up
> in legal documents and opinions. So it is worth searching early (and
> no so early for other words, expressions and quotations) through Lexis
> and/or WestLaw for early American and British court reporters and/or
> Kluwer's collection of European documents (mostly British, of course).
>
> VS-)
>
> On 3/13/10, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>>
>> And even earlier:
>>
>> 1819 _Times_ (London) 3 June 1 (Times Digital Archive)  (advertisement)
>> TO
>> be SOLD, the LEASE of a superb HOTEL-GARNI, with a Restaurant
>> [Restauraut?]
>> in the interior, situated in the most fashionable part of Paris, and
>> frequented by English families of the first distinction.
>>
>>
>> Fred Shapiro
>
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