The pointless flash-mob

Tue May 3 23:22:33 UTC 2011

Ah yes, I remember the event now.  So it is 2003.  Unless someone
wants to tackle the following, allegedly from 2002:

FLASH MOB flitsmeute al gebruikt als equivalent van flash mob. Dit
zijn uiteraard welgevormde samenstellingen, maar wij vragen ons af of
er een alternatief te bedenken is dat duidelijker uitdrukt wat een
flash mob precies is. ...

 From Onze taal: maandblad van het Genootschap Onze Taal: Volumes
71-72.  Genootschap Onze Taal (Netherlands) - 2002 - Snippet
view.  [Journal; unconfirmed.]

About mathematical proofs??  "Naturally well-formed (zaftig?)
equivalence theorem"?

Joel

At 5/3/2011 06:15 PM, Garson O'Toole wrote:
>Wired Magazine has an article that contains a claim about the genesis
>of the modern flash-mob.
>
>WIRED MAGAZINE: 17.06        05.22.09
>The Guy Behind Flash Mobs Tackles His Frankenweb Monster by Jeff Howe
>
>In case you've forgotten, the Harper's senior editor [Bill Wasik]
>engineered the first flash mob. Back in May 2003, he sent his friends
>an anonymous email asking them to participate in a "project that
>creates an inexplicable mob of people in New York City for ten minutes
>or less." A week later, scores of strangers descended upon a Manhattan
>jewelry shop, stood around for a bit, then dispersed just as
>mysteriously. By August, flash mobs were popping up in cities around
>the world and the concept became the subject of countless blog posts
>and news reports.
>
>http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/pl_print
>
>
>On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 5:33 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      A not-pointless flash-mob?
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > "... the operation also provided a rare burst of communal good
> > feeling that some celebrated with flash-mob demonstrations at ground
> > zero, the White House and Times Square, among other places."
> >
> > Alessandra Stanley, "The TV Watch", NYTimes, today, section F.
> >
> > A well-worn term, but not in the OED* and defined by Wikipedia as "a
> > group of people who assemble suddenly in a
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_place>public place, perform an
> > unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then
> > disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment and/or satire."
> >
> > One might argue about the pointedness of Sunday night's flash mobs.
> >
> > * Except s.v. "reason, n.1" --
> >      2003    Boston Sunday Globe (Metropolitan ed.) 16 Nov.
> > b7/2   The 'flash mob' phenomenon, where hundreds of people
> > gather..and disperse quickly, seemingly without reason.
> >
> > Confusable (e.g. in GBooks) with an older meaning for "flash mob", a
> > mob of "sporting men" (more accurately, I think, underworld
> > denizens).  This meaning also apparently is not in the OED as a phrase.
> >
> > 1)   An intriguing possible Australian antecedent?
> > -----
> > [They] could descry a long dark line of moving objects at a
> > considerable distance on the plain, but whether horses, cattle, or
> > even a troop of emu, they were unable to make out with certainty.
> >
> > "Let's back her up quietly ... She and Charley witll head them; it's
> > no use bustin' our horses.  This is rather a flash mob, but they'll
> > be all right when they're wheeled once or twice."
> > ---
> > So a stampede, a mob that arose "in a flash"?
> >
> > In The squatter's dream: a story of Australian life, by Rolf
> > Boldrewood.  London, Macmillan and co., etc., 1892.    [Publisher and
> > date from Harvard; text from GBooks.]
> >
> > 2)  Ambiguous?
> > -----
> > Nice is crowded for the approaching Carnival ... The streets are
> > choked with a horrible flash mob. This place is a combination of
> > Rosherville, Margate, with a strong smack of parlickly Marseilles ...
> > -----
> > Depends on how disreputable Rosherville and Margate were circa 1900.
> >
> > In Old diaries, 1881-1901, by Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower.  London :
> > J. Murray, 1902.  [Publisher and date from Harvard; text from GBooks.]
> >
> > 3)  Modern sense seems to have arisen in 2003.  [GBooks, simple
> > search only for "flash-mob", quoted.  I have not looked in
> > newspapers.]  Or perhaps 2002, if someone knows Dutch.
> >
> > Joel
> >
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> >
>
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