Antedating of "Spreadsheet"

[Dan Goncharoff]

Fred

Is there a meaning of spreadsheet in the 1981 context that is any way
different from the 1945 context? I ask as someone whose first job after
graduation in 1982 was taking spreadsheets done in pencil on columnar pads
and setting them up in VisiCalc on an Apple III. The function was the same;
the end product was the same. Is it a different word?

I note that the phrase "video game" does merit distinction from "game", but
I think that is a different animal altogether. Am I mistaken?

DanG


On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 10:51 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Antedating of "Spreadsheet"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> spreadsheet (OED 1982)
>
> 1981 _ABA Banking Journal_ Oct. (Nexis)  Whatever the size of your bank'
> pe=
> rsonal computers belong on its planning agenda for next year. Personal
> comp=
> uters--also known as home computers and microcomputers--are those small,
> in=
> expensive, and yet amazingly powerful and flexible machines that are being
> =
> used for everything from video games to spread-sheet analysis.
>
> ***
>
> The above citation alludes to VisiCalc, the enormously important invention
> =
> of my old partner on the MIT tiddlywinks team, Dan Bricklin.  The OED
> fails=
>  to recognize that the VisiCalc spreadsheet was preceded by a
> noncomputeriz=
> ed financial tool called a "spread-sheet."  Here is an early citation:
>
> 1945 _Journal of the American Statistical Association_ 40: 511 (JSTOR)
>  Att=
> ention is directed to the Summary of Financial Data (Spread Sheet) shown
> in=
>  Exhibit III.  It will be noted that basic statistical data is
> "spread-out"=
>  on one sheet so as to be read easily and correlated to significant
> factors=
>  recorded in the lower part of the exhibit which are essential to proper
> in=
> terpretation of the data.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
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