I cleep, you cleep, he cleeps

[Joel S. Berson]

At 9/18/2010 11:31 AM, Dave Wilton wrote:
>I doubt that this is a survival of the old verb.
>
>It seems more likely to me that it is a variant of (or even a typo for)
>"creep." After all the captains are slowing advancing, or creeping, toward
>one another. Does this usage appear in any other sources?

George found "cleep" in an American edition of 1851.  It also appears
in an American edition of 1848.  One might surmise a typo repeated.  But --

The British edition of 1847 also has "cleep" (p. 54) -- and the word
is placed in parentheses, suggesting both that its use was
intentional and that it was unfamiliar to readers of that
date.  Google Books has that edition, which Harvard describes as:
Title :         The boy's treasury of sports, pastimes, and
recreations / with four engravings by Samuel Williams.
Edition :     New edition.
Published : London : D. Bogue, 86, Fleet Street, 1847 (London :
Bradbury and Evans, printers, Whitefriars)

The 1844 British edition [London : D. Bogue, (Late Tilt and Bogue)]
is at the Harvard Depository; I will request it and report back next week.

Google Books is the one with the typos -- it claims 5,510 instances
of "cleep"!  At least three, looking at their text, and perhaps 5509,
are "deep", one being as recent as a 2005 imprint.  Another, in a
pediatrics word book, Google renders as "cleep liypottiemiig".  Do we
recognize that as "deep hypothermia"?  I refuse to search
further.  Except that "cleep" + "prisoner's base" (both quoted) yields nil.

Joel

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