OED's "rum" -- perhaps 1651?; and its misattributions to "Franklin's" Drinkers Dictionary

[Joel S. Berson]

The "perhaps 1651" in the Subject line is due to my carelessness.  It
should have been deleted, since the 1651 quotation is for
"rumbullion" -- and in the OED.

JB

At 3/24/2011 02:00 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>In the latest OED newsletter I find --
>
>A)  an article on rum, saying:
>
>"The word <http://oed.com/view/Entry/168746>rum is first recorded in
>1654 in the Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, where it is
>mentioned along with another of its names
><http://oed.com/view/Entry/103374>kill-devil:
>        Berbados Liquors, commonly called Rum, Kill Deuill, or the like"
>
>Has anyone looked into the early records of Massachusetts or
>Boston?  Much the more active port at the time, I'm sure, than
>Saybrook.  (The Colony of Connecticut did not merge with New Haven
>until 1665.)
>
>
>B)  under Latest update / Figures of speech:
>
>"The vocabulary of drunkenness is immense, and has been since at
>least the time of the famous Drinker's Dictionary (1737) in Benjamin
>Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette. To that vast lexicon we now add ..."
>
>But every word or expression in Franklin's dictionary was published 6
>months earlier, in the New England Weekly Journal of July 6,
>1736.  See "The Source for Benjamin Franklin's 'The Drinkers
>Dictionary' ...", _American Speech_, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Summer 2006), by
>... moi.  The OED's quotations from "Franklin's" Drinkers Dictionary
>are under dagged, king['s English] (both interdatings), and fence and
>Virginia (earliest quote for "Virginia fence").
>
>Joel
>
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