Negative Nancies and other related musings

[Joel S. Berson]

At 3/20/2010 09:53 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>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

Michael says, in this page created 15 Mar. 2003, that "the Oxford
English Dictionary editors tell me that they've recently found it in
a work of 1659: "To prosecute the suit, to witt John Doe And Richard
Roe"."  I did not know, since this has not reached the OED yet
(although the entry for "John" is still 2nd ed. 1989).  And Michael
does not cite any sources or dates for the unreality of John Stiles
and Richard Miles.  (Wikipedia cites Quinion, and I would not be
surprised if the other 4578 hits all derive from these 2!)

Joel


>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.
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org