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

[Shapiro, Fred]

In fact the OED generally dates diaries, journals, and letters by the date of composition, with the date of publication indicated in parentheses.

Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Victor Steinbok [aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2012 12:49 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Quote: he only lamented,              that he had but one life to lose for his country (Nathan Hale              1799)

Attribution does not mean that the quote is "from the guy". We have
enough quotes attributed to Mark Twain that appeared a decade or more
after his death. Should we backdate all of them irrespectively of their
authenticity? I am puzzled at the question. At first, I thought it was a
snark. But it does look like one any more.

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. I suppose, those date can be
faked and notes postdated, but that's the case with publication dates as
well (plenty of nontrivial typos on title pages). But, other than Pepys,
all citations seem to be for publication dates.

     VS-)

On 4/22/2012 12:00 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
> 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.

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