milli-Helen, milliHelen, as a unit of beauty (1958 March 11)

[Garson O'Toole]

Wikipedia contains an article titles "List of Humorous Units of
Measurement" that includes a discussion of the miliHelen and connects
the term to Cambridge mathematician W.A.H. Rushton and Isaac Asimov:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement

Wikitionary has a entry that includes a first cite dated 1983 and a
cite in 1992 in which Asimov claims that he and Mario Castillo came up
with the term "in the early forties".
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/millihelen

Historical Dictionary of American Slang has an entry on page 557 with
a first cite dated 1969. HDAS refers to Current Slang I & II which
notes the term is used by "Air Force Academy cadets."

Here is a 1958 Milwaukee Journal cite that reprints material from England.

Cite info: 1958 March 11, The Milwaukee Journal, 'He is Ugly Enough to
Stop a Wristwatch, (Reprinted from the Manchester Guardian)

A correspondent has suggest-
ed that psychologists, intoxicat-
ed by their success in measuring
intelligence, are hoping to meas-
ure feminine beauty in precise
units. He suggests that the unit
proposed will be the "milli-
helen"—the quantity of beauty
required to launch exactly one
ship."

http://goo.gl/gE0CU

Cite info: 1958 March 22, Evening Times, Column by James Parker, Page
9, United Kingdom. (Google News archive)

Talking of calibration, some one suggested the other day that the
standard unit of beauty should be called a milliHelen - being the
precise amount required to launch one ship.

http://goo.gl/gjNJF

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 3:12 PM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Scientific Conversions
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> James Harbeck wrote:
>> I was expecting to see among them the basic unit of beauty, the
>> millihelen -- a unit of beauty sufficient to launch one ship (since
>> Helen had the face that launched a thousand ships).
>
> Many of the items on the list of humorous measurements posted by Joel
> are on a list that was posted to the newsgroup rec.humor.funny twenty
> years ago on June 5, 1991.
>
> The millihelen mentioned by James Harbeck is included in the 1991
> list. Here is a link to the post in the Google Groups repository:
>
> http://goo.gl/4TgYB
>
> Millihelen is listed in Wikitionary, in Wikipedia, in the Urban
> Dictionary, and in the Historical Dictionary of American Slang. I do
> not see the term in the OED. Wikitionary gives a 1983 cite. HDAS
> presents a 1969 cite.
>
> I found a citation dated November 13, 1958 which I will post about
> when I get a chance to look a bit further. Or someone can scoop me.
> The Wikitionary entry reprints an interesting claim made by Asimov.
>
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/millihelen
>
> Garson
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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