Negative Nancies and other related musings

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:13 PM -0400 3/20/10, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>I had not previously met these perhaps even more ancient gentlemen.
>
>But for John Stiles, the OED does not have a definition, and the 3
>instances (the first from 1671, and the other two from Blackstone)
>seem all to refer to real people!  And I do not meet Richard Miles in
>the OED at all.
>
>Did these names become generic, and when?  Or, Laurence, are you
>putting us on again?
>
>Joel

Me?  Putting you on?  Perish the thought!

Here's Michael Quinion's take (found among various others by googling
the anonymous couple below):
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-joh2.htm

And if you don't trust Michael or me, you certainly will accept the
authority of Yahoo! Answers:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080619215405AAo1DYW

LH

>
>At 3/20/2010 08:31 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>And the parties of the 3rd and 4th part, John Stiles and Richard Miles.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org