twitterrati plus request

[Dan Goncharoff]

I find the Wodehouse usage unclear, which also means I can't even try to
refute it.

Billboard has a clear 1946 usage:

http://books.google.com/books?id=GxoEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT71&dq=%22blow+the+whistle+on%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wvdOUdTRBOLI0wGzrYDABw&ved=0CFkQ6AEwBw

"A three-card monte dealer once told me never to *blow the whistle on* another
man's grift."

To me, this feels more like a cop's whistle than a ref's.

DanG


On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 10:01 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      twitterrati plus request
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> An interesting variation--wonder if double-r is reasonable.
>
> http://goo.gl/Bw1FL
> > That felt nothing like Thursday, when Harvard pulled off an upset over
> > a physically imposing New Mexico team -- a stunner that riled up the
> > Harvard twitterrati and sparked dreams of nets somehow being cut down
> > with a slide rule.
>
> Goes in the file with "glitterati" and other assorted variations.
>
> Completely OT, I wanted to know if anyone has posted/noted anything of
> significance on 1) medibles and 2) antedating of "whisleblower" (OED
> 1970; MWOLD 1970; note that MW and AHD both have a very narrow
> definition, as do most other online dictionaries, with AHD listing only
> the one-word form and MW only the dashed form)
>
> Wikipedia makes some claims that may not stand up under scrutiny:
>
> > The term whistle-blower comes from the whistle a referee uses to
> > indicate an illegal or foul play.[4][5] US civic activist Ralph Nader
> > coined the phrase in the early 1970s to avoid the negative
> > connotations found in other words such as "informers" and "snitches".[6]
>
> Wodehouse is repeatedly cited as the earliest incarnation for the
> corresponding verb, so crediting Nader is questionable at best.
> Etymonline is the source for associating the term with sports
> (particularly "referee"), but I have reason to believe there is more to
> it. I'll comment on it later unless someone's already covered this
> extensively.
>
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>

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