"hourly", noun, "public conveyance that runs every hour", antedated nearly 50 years

[Dan Goncharoff]

According to hopstop.com, it actually takes six minutes to get from
Rector St to Houston St. (the southern border of the Ninth Ward, which
roughly corresponds to the West Village)
.
DanG



On Sun, Aug 7, 2011 at 11:36 AM, George Thompson
<george.thompson at nyu.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Subject:      "hourly", noun, "public conveyance that runs every hour",
>              antedated nearly 50 years
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Here is a vision of the future of New York City.
> It also offers a considerable antedating of one sense of "hourly" as a noun=
> .
>  It fails by one year to antedate one sense of "accommodation" as a noun,
> and "railroad" as a verb, but the current version of the "railroad" entry i=
> n
> OED -- I suppose that a revision is in hand even now -- has a nearly 20 yea=
> r
> gap between the earliest and the second appearances.
>
> A rail road could be constructed through Broadway, so as not to prevent
> waggons, carts, and carriages from crossing at any particular point.  ***  =
> If
> it were advisable to rail road busy streets and thorough fares, it would pu=
> t
> out of use entirely the "accommodations" and "hourly," now employed.  A
> person could pass from Wall street to the Ninth Ward in five minutes -- the
> extremities of the city would be brought as near as the different ends of a
> single ward -- and a large extensive city would, in regards to
> transportation, be as accessible from one point to another as the densest
> village. ***
>
>            Morning Courier & New-York Enquirer, December 3, 1830, p. 2,
> col. 3
>
>
>
> accommodation (noun) 6  b. ellipt. for accommodation stage
> n.<http://ezproxy.library.nyu.edu:32445/view/Entry/1134?rskey=3D0n7NhJ&resu=
> lt=3D1&isAdvanced=3Dtrue#eid115646587>,
> accommodation train n. at
> Compounds<http://ezproxy.library.nyu.edu:32445/view/Entry/1134?rskey=3D0n7N=
> hJ&result=3D1&isAdvanced=3Dtrue#eid115646589>.
> U.S.
>
> 1829    A. Royall Pennsylvania II. 9,   I=E2=80=A5intended to take the Acco=
> mmodation
> in the morning.
>
> 1877    =E2=80=98E. W. Martin=E2=80=99 Hist. Great Riots 117   The Sharpsvi=
> lle
> =E2=80=98accommodation=E2=80=99=E2=80=A5had been lying for two hours withou=
> t an engine.
>
> 1891    C. Roberts Adrift in Amer. ii. 33   We went on what is called an
> =E2=80=98accommodation=E2=80=99, that is, a freight train with a passenger =
> car at the end of
> it.
>
>
>
>                hourly (adj) 2 b. as n. (U.S.) A public conveyance that run=
> s
> every hour.
>
> 1877    J. R. Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (ed. 4) ,   Hourly, formerly used
> in and about Boston for an omnibus.
>
> 1881    Harper's Mag. Feb. 388   The terrors of the =E2=80=98hourly=E2=80=
> =99 or omnibus.
>
> railroad, verb, 1829, 1848
>
>
>
> railroad (verb) 1. trans. To construct railroads in (a country, etc.). Also
> fig. Now rare.
>
> 1829    A. Royall Pennsylvania I. 123   They are canaling and rail-roading
> the whole country.
>
> 1848    E. Cook Poems (ed. 3) II. Pref. p. ix,   The public mind seems
> nearly as much railroaded as the country.
>
> &c.
>
> --=20
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ=
> .
> Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.
>
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>

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