"gold dust" -- fig.1739

[Victor Steinbok]

I wasn't disputing your find, Joel. I was pointing out that you were
improving something rather than inventing it.

     VS-)

On 3/27/2010 7:54 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> At 3/27/2010 07:44 AM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>
>> I do want to point out that OED /does/ contain a reference to figurative
>> use ...
>> /fig/. *1837* H. MARTINEAU /Soc. Amer/. II. 368 The day will come when
>> their eyes will be cleansed from the gold-dust which blinds them.
>>
> I apologize -- I don't know how I missed this, which the OED
> explicitly calls "fig."
>
> However, my 1739 quotation does antedate the OED, and by a century:
>
>
>> Boston News-Letter; Date: From Thursday January 4, to Thursday
>> January 11, 1739; Issue: 1816; Page: [1], col. 1.
>>
>> Advices, London, October 11, 1738.
>>
>> Some of the High Germans seem now to have rubb'd the French Gold-Dust
>> out of their Eyes,&  begin to see that the French are but lukewarm in
>> the Emperor's Interest in the pretended mediation with the Ottoman
>> Port; a wonderful Discovery this! that a Prince of Bourbon should be
>> a feint Friend to the House of Austria; When were the Galls ever true
>> to the Germans?
>>
> Joel
>

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