Q: Coiner of "power nap"?

[Garson O'Toole]

Joel S. Berson wrote
> On NPR just after the change to daylight savings time, there was a
> piece about how to recover from the loss of sleep.  I heard a
> reference to a "Mott", or "Moch", or some such, at Cornell, who
> claimed to have coined the phrase "power nap".
>
> The OED draft rev. March 2010 has as its earliest "1986 Chicago
> Tribune (Nexis) 4 May 1 He attended a party until the wee hours. He
> had a horse to work, so instead of catching a *power nap, he went
> directly to the barns at 4.30 a.m., replete in tuxedo and spats."
>
> Is Mr. M---'s claim supported?  (And did the horsy set at Cornell
> also party hard?)
>
> Or does "power nap" go back to 1936, in The New Yorker, Vol. 12,
> issue 2, page 80, col. 2, snippet view:
>
> Boulware is so drunk and so terrified that he collapses (or, as one
> of the policemen puts it, "is so boxed, his response is to take a
> little power nap on the sidewalk"), while Cash does the right thing
> and hands over his wallet.

The novel Lush Life by Richard Price was reviewed in an issue of the
New Yorker dated April 7, 2008 (online). I think this text is from the
review (and the novel). Apparently this is another case of faulty
metadata.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/04/07/080407crbo_books_wood?currentPage=2

Every text match in my search results to content in the New Yorker has
been incorrectly dated.

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