"gandy dancer" antedated to 1915

[Wilson Gray]

On Sun, Jul 8, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:
> A railroad maintenance-worker or section-hand.

I know _gandy(-)dancer_, FWIW, as a name for a "*railroad-track*
maintenance-worker" and not as a name for any random railroad
maintenance-worker.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandy_dancer

This comment is aimed at the OED definition and not at Stephen's
antedating. It's hardly unknown for non-standard terms to have
different-strokes-for-different-folks meanings.

http://books.google.com/books?id=kNk4AAAAMAAJ&q=%22gandy+dancer%22&dq=%22gandy+dancer%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TMb5T9fQHarl0QGB_NX3Bg&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAA

is a ref to (blocked) AS 1930.
--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
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-Mark Twain

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