on blizzards and infixes

[Laurence Horn]

On Feb 14, 2013, at 12:22 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> More data in HDAS.
>
> JL

Amidst the Davy Crockett sightings (down the gun-barrel) and the weather-related ones (which evidently came and went through the 19th c., with comments as to how this sense had died out), there's a chilling one worth a double take:

1887 Along the Atlantic coast…the word _blizzard_ means a general discharge of all the guns…a rattling volley…This use of the word is familiar to every 'longshoreman from Sandy Hook to Currituck.

The reference, however, is not to "our" Sandy Hook, but one in North Carolina, I infer.

LH
>
> On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 11:32 AM, 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: 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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>
>
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