Antedating of "duckboard"

[Hugo]

"duckboard" (OED: March 1917)

Record (Emerald Hill, Vic. : 1881 - 1900) - Saturday 12 February 1916

Used in a translation of a German prisoner's letter, after just saying how comfortable and how much food the Australian troops have:

[Begin]
The following ex-
ract from a letter written home by a
German prisoner just before his cap-
ture is instructive and typical:-
"I wish you could come and slither
about in our dugous, where we have a
terrible lot of water. In the fire
trenches the water is now from 2 to
3 1/2 feet deep. 'We have no stockings
left, as we have to change them every
minute. We have piled up the duck
boards in the dugouts, where we
slither about on hands and knees."
[End]

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/75011948?searchTerm=duckboard%20OR%20%22duck%20board%22&searchLimits=exactPhrase|||l-word=*ignore*%7C*ignore*|||fromyyyy=1908|||notWords|||anyWords|||tomm=02|||toyyyy=1917|||todd|||frommm|||fromdd|||sortby=dateAsc

Hugo

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org