"vulture capitalist" -- WOTY in diapers at the start of the new year?

[Dan Goncharoff]

The NYTimes has "venture-capitalist" in a letter published Nov. 29, 1941.
GB has numerous cites for "venture capital" before 1940.
DanG


On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 11:46 PM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "vulture capitalist" -- WOTY in diapers at the start of
> the
>              new year?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Thanks to George, Victor, and other participants on this thread for
> comments. I think the 1971 date for "venture capitalist" can be pushed
> back. Here is a citation in 1946 and one in 1953.
>
> Cite: 1946 July 27, Collier's Weekly, The Truth About Henry Kaiser by
> Lester Velie, Start Page 11, Quote Page 12, Column 3, The
> Crowell-Collier Publishing Company. (Unz)
> [Begin excerpt]
> To friendly officials in Washington, Mr. Kaiser is a great natural
> resource during peace as he was during war - the sort of venture
> capitalist our economy needs to make it grow. To critics, he is the
> pampered darling of the New Deal, the greatest individual beneficiary
> of government largesse in history.
> [End excerpt]
>
> Cite: 1953 June 27, The Saturday Review, Human Want Is Obsolete by
> Gerard Piel, Start Page 9, Quote Page 10, Column 2, Saturday Review
> Associates Inc., New York. (Unz)
> [Begin excerpt]
> What science needs is brave money-with no strings attached. We are not
> being brave enough when we find it necessary to invoke the prospect of
> practical results in order to justify support of basic science. But if
> results are all that is wanted, it takes a reckless venture capitalist
> to back basic research.
> [End excerpt]
>
> The 1959 Time magazine cite given earlier quotes Sukarno using the
> phrase "vulture capitalists". This was after "venture capitalist"
> entered circulation. However, the magazine article does not indicate
> whether Sukarno was speaking English when he used the term. If he was
> not speaking English then the wordplay of "venture" and "vulture" may
> not be relevant. Knowledge of the  untranslated words might be
> helpful.
>
> The 1972 Boston Globe cite may still be the earliest one that
> explicitly connects "vulture capitalist" and "venture capitalist".
>
> Garson
>
> On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 9:35 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
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> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: "vulture capitalist" -- WOTY in diapers at the start
> of the
> >              new year?
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > The earlier examples are pretty clearly simple Socialist name-calling
> > ("scavengers"), not puns or jokes--a lot like the originally Chinese
> > expression "capitalist pig-dogs" that used to be popular with campus
> > Communists in the 1980s and 1990s. [According to Victor Mair, it appears
> > to be a pretty close translation of the Chinese original.]
> >
> >     VS-)
> >
> > On 1/13/2012 6:59 PM, George Thompson wrote:
> >> I see that the OED has "venture capitalist" only from 1971, so the
> earlier
> >> examples that Garson has found wouldn't be based on the same joke.
> >>
> >> GAT
> >>
> >> On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 11:06 AM, Garson O'Toole
> >> <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:
> >>
> >>> Kudos to the OED team. Below is a citation in 1972 showing "vulture
> >>> capitalists" derived from "venture capitalists" via wordplay. The
> >>> phrase "vulture capitalist" actually has a much longer history, but
> >>> earlier instances may not fit the modern OED definition.
> >>>
> >>> Cite: 1972 January 9, Boston Globe, The big job: conversion by Bruce
> >>> Davidson, Start Page B-1, Quote Page B-4, Boston, Massachusetts.
> >>> (ProQuest)
> >>> [Begin excerpt]
> >>> No wonder, perhaps, that venture capitalists are known in some
> >>> quarters as vulture capitalists.
> >>> [End excerpt]
> >>>
> >>> Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.
> >>>
> >>> Cite: 1837 November 18, Columbian Register, The whigs of New York,
> >>> Page 3, Column 3, New Haven, Connecticut (GenealogyBank)
> >>> [Begin excerpt]
> >>> The usury laws should not be repealed, so us to suffer the vulture
> >>> capitalists and shavers to devour business men of small means at one
> >>> repast. The usury enactments should he more severe.
> >>> [End excerpt]
> >>>
> >>> Cite: 1885 July, Progress, Mr. Chamberlain and Socialism by Thomas
> >>> Maguire, Start Page 316, Quote Page 318, Column 2, Progressive
> >>> Publishing Co., London. (Google Books full view)
> >>> http://books.google.com/books?id=5gMbAAAAYAAJ&q=vulture#v=snippet&
> >>> [Begin excerpt]
> >>> For do we not find everywhere throughout our civilisation the hundred
> >>> proletarian personalities degraded to brute level, divested of all
> >>> individuality that the one vulture-capitalist, personality, may air an
> >>> illegitimate individuality, as baneful as it is accursed?
> >>> [End excerpt]
> >>>
> >>> Cite: 1914 December 26, Puck, The Unemployment Problem, Page 7, New
> >>> York. (ProQuest)
> >>> [Begin excerpt]
> >>> But if you should meet any one of these twenty-nine, he will tell you
> >>> with a droop of the lower lip, that times are terrible; that the
> >>> vulture capitalist is tearing the vitals from the laboring man; that
> >>> Wilson never should have been elected; and that foreigners must be
> >>> kept out of the country
> >>> [End excerpt]
> >>>
> >>> Cite: 1959 September 7, Time, INDONESIA: Drastic Medicine, Time Inc.,
> >>> New York. (Online Time archive; Accessed 2012 January 13)
> >>> [Begin excerpt]
> >>> All this was done to the accompaniment of denunciations by Sukarno of
> >>> "vulture capitalists." Added he: "Whoever scoops up wealth at the
> >>> expense of the public, whoever disrupts the public economy, will be
> >>> arrested, will be taken to court, will be punished severely, and if
> >>> necessary will be sentenced to death."
> >>> [End excerpt]
> >>>
> >>> Cite: 1962 May, The Journal of Asian Studies, Some
> >>> Social-Anthropological Obervations on Gotong Rojong Practices in Two
> >>> Villages of Central Java. by Koentjaraningrat; Structural Changes in
> >>> Javanese Society: The Village Sphere. by D. H. Burger; Living
> >>> Conditions of Plantation Workers and Peasants on Java in 1939-1940. ;
> >>> Some Factors Related to Autonomy and Dependence in Twelve Javanese
> >>> Villages by Barbara Dohrenwend Review by: Clifford Geertz Volume 21,
> >>> Number 3, Start Page 413, Quote Page 414, Published by: Association
> >>> for Asian Studies (JSTOR)
> >>> http://www.jstor.org/stable/2050724
> >>> [Begin excerpt]
> >>> In introducing his "Conception" of "Guided Democracy" in  1957,
> >>> President Sukarno attacked as alien and un-Indonesian the "free-fight
> >>> Liberalism" of "vulture capitalism,"  which had apparently
> >>> characterized the Republic thus far, saying that it should be replaced
> >>> by a more properly indigenous and morally superior spirit: Gotong
> >>> Rojong.
> >>> [End excerpt]
> >>>
> >>> Typos and other errors are possible. Please double-check before use.
> >>> Best Garson
> >
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