Quote: he only lamented, that he had but one life to lose for his country (Nathan Hale 1799)

[Jonathan Lighter]

> I have a greater concern about dates of illustration quotes in the OED
where a diary is cited according to a publication date rather than the
stated date of the original recording.

HDAS users need not worry about this problem.

But one *can* go overboard. An anonymous referee once dissed my grant
application by asking (I quote from memory), "Does Lighter really believe,
for example, that _To Kill a Mockingbird_ [published in 1960] was actually
written in that year?"

What a jerk.  Of course, it might have been more in line with current
quantum theory to have dated it according to a style resembling
"ca1955-ca1959,"   but I didn't think of that till much later.  (My learned
colleague made no suggestion for improvement, BTW.)  What I did do was to
date to the previous year any lengthy book in print before April of the
copyright year.  (I was criticized for that too.)  When there was authorial
testimony that a book was begun at some earlier point, the style became
"earlier point-publication year."

JL

On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 12:54 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: Quote: he only lamented, that he had but one life to
> lose for
>              his country (Nathan Hale 1799)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Dan Goncharoff wrote:
> > ... It just doesn't explain to my satisfaction
> > why a quote from a guy who died in 1776 is dated 1799.
>
> The original post on this thread contained the 1799 citation (given
> further below) for the quotation ascribed to Nathan Hale. When I
> started this thread this 1799 cite was the earliest verified evidence
> I was able to locate for a version of the quotation. The 1799 date
> referred to the date of publication of the book containing the quote.
> The date did not refer to the day in 1776 on which Nathan Hale was
> supposed to have uttered his famous statement. I apologize if my
> presentation caused confusion.
>
> A follow-up post included earlier citations in 1777 and 1781 that
> provided evidence of the existence of some version of Hale's remark. I
> did not change the title of the thread. Hence the 1799 date was still
> listed in the title.
>
> Quotation references sometimes give multiple dates for a quote:
>
> 1) the date on which the quote was supposedly spoken or written
> 2) the date of a piece of evidence for the quote, e.g., in a
> periodical, book, or diary
> 3) dates that trace the evolution of the quote
>
> Note that the 1777 quote differs markedly from the 1781 quote, and
> both of these quotes differ from the 1799 quote. Hence, it is useful
> to keep track of multiple dates when tracing the evolution of a
> quotation.
>
> If the earliest evidence is a diary then sometimes two more dates are
> given: The date the diary was published and the date the diarist
> assigned to the event/quote.
>
> Cite: 1799, A Summary History of New-England: From the First
> Settlement at Plymouth to the Acceptance of the Federal Constitution:
> Comprehending a General Sketch of the American War by Hannah Adams,
> Quote Page 359, Printed for the Author by H. Mann and J. H. Adams,
> Dedham. (HathiTrust)
> [Begin excerpt]
> "Unknown to all around him, without a single friend to offer him the
> least consolation, thus fell as amiable and as worthy a young man as
> America could boast, with this, as his dying observation, "that he
> only lamented, that he had but one life to lose for his country."
> [End excerpt]
>
> Garson
>
> On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 12:00 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: Quote: he only lamented, that he had but one life to
> lose for
> >              his country (Nathan Hale 1799)
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > No argument here. It just doesn't explain to my satisfaction why a
> > quote from a guy who died in 1776 is dated 1799. Neoclassicism and
> > Romanticism still used the calendar correctly.
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> > On Apr 22, 2012, at 10:13 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> wrote:
> >
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> >> Subject:      Re: Quote: he only lamented, that he had but one life to
> lose for
> >>              his country (Nathan Hale 1799)
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> To elucidate:  Neoclassical "Literary types" weren't hoaxers and liars;
> >> they just believed that the idea was more important than exact words,
> and
> >> that important ideas should be expressed and preserved in their most
> nearly
> >> perfect form. The Romantics probably felt the same way.
> >>
> >> Or am I dreaming that?
> >>
> >> JL
>
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>



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