Antedating of "Hijack" / "Hijacking"

[Laurence Horn]

On Feb 11, 2013, at 9:32 PM, Baker, John wrote:

> The following may be relevant, although it seems to be a different meaning of "high jack."  This is from an 1891 libel case, quoting a passage in the Jacksonville (Ill.) Journal:
>
>
> "DESERTED BY HIS WIFE."
> "Florence Beymer, the well known deaf barber, is playing in hard luck. His wife has run off with another fellow, and yesterday he was fined $10 and costs for an assault on the woman's mother. He is in a terrible stew about it all, of course. For the past year his wife has been playing high jack whenever she chose, and her continued escapades with other men have made her husband as jealous as a dozen ordinary men, but he has grinned and borne all his troubles with the grace of a saint and the imperturbability of an Indian. Now, however, he is in tureen deep. Beymer insists that he did not commit the assault for which he was fined, but the court seems to have thought differently."
>
>
> Jacksonville Journal Co. v. Beymer, 42 Ill.App. 443 (Ill. App. Ct. Dec. 3, 1891).  The opinion does not give the date of the newspaper, but it probably was the late 1880s.  I haven't heard "playing high jack"; could this have morphed into "hijack"?
>
>
Hard to guess.  But I love the newspaperese--they just don't write 'em that way anymore (and how many guys named Florence do we run into, much less one who has "grinned and borne all his troubles with the grace of a saint and impeturbabiity of an Indian"  And yet now he's in it, "tureen deep".  Much more elegantly conceived than GHWB's deep doo-doo.  I'm visualizing turtle soup.

LH
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Nathaniel Sharpe
> Sent: Monday, February 11, 2013 8:44 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Antedating of "Hijack" / "Hijacking"
>
> Going off Jon's suggestion, I did a search of contemporary Oklahoma
> papers and came up with these 1916 instances of the "illegal kind:"
>
> Date: Wednesday, August 9, 1916  Paper: Tulsa World (Tulsa, OK)  Volume:
> XI  Issue: 280  Page: 1, Tells of Shooting Osage "High Jack"
> (GenealogyBank.com)
> According to a story told by R. W. Smith, an oil man of this city, there
> will be one less "high-jack" to contend with in the Osage hills for a
> time at least, as a result of his marksmanship, displayed in a pitched
> battle on the old ridge road late Sunday afternoon.
> Smith says he was showing some of his friends a lease near Keystone and
> was returning to Tula when he was confronted by a lone highwayman who
> commanded Smith and his party to "stick-em up."
>
> Date: Saturday, April 1, 1916  Paper: Tulsa World (Tulsa, OK)  Volume:
> XI  Issue: 169  Page: Four, The Man About Town (GenealogyBank.com)
> Knowing their immense wealth, pickpockets would immediately high-jack
> the whole crowd.
>
>
> Nat
>
> On 2/11/2013 7:02 PM, Jonathan Lighter 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: Antedating of "Hijack" / "Hijacking"
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Have you tried "high-jack/ing/er"?
>>
>> JL
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 7:56 PM, Laurence Horn<laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Laurence Horn<laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>> Subject:      Re: Antedating of "Hijack" / "Hijacking"
>>>
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> On Feb 11, 2013, at 7:42 PM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
>>>
>>>> hijack, hijacking (OED 1923)
>>>>
>>>> 1918 _Miami District Daily News_ (Miami, Oklahoma) 19 May 4 (America's
>>> Historical Newspapers)  Mulcting four soldiers of $35 by the Joplin
>>> authorities might be termed legalized "Hijacking."
>>> ...which certainly suggests the illegal kind has already been widely known
>>> by then
>>>
>>> LH
>>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
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