on blizzards and infixes

[Jonathan Lighter]

More data in HDAS.

JL

On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 11:32 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: on blizzards and infixes
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Feb 14, 2013, at 11:25 AM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 11:12 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu
> >wrote:
> >
> >> blizzard
> >
> >
> > What about this passage:
> >
> > I started down the edge of the river low grounds, giving out the pursuit
> of
> > my elks, and hadn't gone hardly any distance at all, before I saw two
> more
> > bucks, very large fellows too. I took a blizzard at one of them, and up
> he
> > tumbled.
> >
> > NARRATIVE
> > OF THE
> > LIFE OF DAVID CROCKETT,
> > OF TEE STATE OF TENNESSEE.
> > WRITTEN BY HIMSELF
> > E. L. Carey and A. Hart, 1834
> >
> Must have taken a very large amount of buckshot to get him to tumble up
> rather than down!  (The first OED cite for the sense 'a sharp blow or
> knock; a shot' is 1829, from the Virginia Literary Museum ("_Blizzard_, a
> violent blow"), but obviously the word must actually have been used before
> it was so mentioned.   Antedater alert!
>
> LH
>
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