_Canvass_ > "examine, pore over, search"

[Laurence Horn]

The really fun part of the OED entry for _canvass_ (which inspired me to use it in a class exercise to demonstrate semantic change) is the history, from canvas (the cloth) to the use of canvas sheets for fun and torture back in the early 16th c.:

1. To toss in a canvas sheet, etc., as a sport or punishment; to blanket. Obs.
†2. To knock about, shake and shatter thoroughly; to buffet; to beat, batter, drub.

By the late 16th c. this began to allow for metaphorical readings, but the route from tossing someone in a canvas sheet or thrashing them to surveying a region to soliciting votes is pretty interesting.  Warning: tracking the history may provide an unfortunate reminder of the 2000 presidential election.

LH



On Apr 17, 2014, at 7:41 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> At 4/17/2014 03:37 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
>> OED does a very poor job on police "canvassing the neighborhood." In fact,
>> it's not there at all, unless you're happy with 7b, "To sue or solicit
>> (persons, a district) for votes, subscriptions, custom, orders, etc."
>>
>> See, "etc." could include "information." Works for me. Not.
>
> It works for me with "information", but not with the OEDs verbs (sue,
> solicit).  My notion of (the sense in question here of) "canvass" is
> "to search, inquire, for information".  Similar to Jon's Subject line
> (but more with the sense of "seeking" than "examining"), and to Dan's
> comment further below.  And different from the 4.b Jon cites next;
> "investigate" is OK; "physically" to restrictive: canvassed
> information can come from speech also.
>
>
>> As for the defined sense, "To investigate or examine physically" (4b), it
>> is clearly marked "Obs.," with a single citation from 1652. Nada since.
>> Odds that Wilson's cited journalist learned this usage in an unbroken and
>> unrecorded line from the mid-17th century: zero.
>>
>> Moreover, the new example is closer in meaning to "search (an area)
>> carefully and methodically" than it is to "investigate or examine
>> physically," which is what the Spanish explorer Francisco de Ulloa was
>> doing, no more and no less, in Peter Heylen's 1652  _Cosmographie_ as he
>> *explored* what is now called the Sea of Cortez:
>
> "Search for information" again.
>
> Joel
>
>
>> "The business having slept a while, was in the year 1539 awakened by
>> *Francisco
>> de Vlloa,* one that had accompanied *Cortez* the time before: who did not
>> only search to the bottom of the *Gulf,* but having thorowly canvassed all
>> the Eastern shores, he turned his course, and made as fortunate a Discovery
>> also of the VVestern coasts."
>>
>> Heylen used "canvass" rather often, usually in the sense of "to discuss."
>>
>> To "investigate or explore (physically)" is a plausible early meaning of
>> "to discuss," though the OED (which see) does not say so.
>>
>> JL
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 5:52 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> > -----------------------
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
>> > Subject:      Re: _Canvass_ > "examine, pore over, search"
>> >
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > There is an older meaning of canvass that means to search or scrutinize.
>> > Back in the 19th century, it was the first meaning. Check the 1828
>> > Webster's.
>> >
>> > DanG
>> >
>> >
>> > On Tue, Apr 15, 2014 at 8:57 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> > > -----------------------
>> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > > Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> > > Subject:      Re: _Canvass_ > "examine, pore over, search"
>> > >
>> > >
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > >
>> > > On Tue, Apr 15, 2014 at 8:12 PM, Jonathan Lighter <
>> > wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
>> > > >wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > "canvass the area"
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > That's a clip of "canvass, i.e. "interview," the [residents of] the area
>> > > [to see what, if anything, they know about the crime]." Since deserts are
>> > > called "deserts" because they're deserted, I can't wrap my mind around
>> > the
>> > > concept of "canvassing" a desert to see what, if anything, it knows about
>> > > the  location of the body of a murder victim or for anything else that it
>> > > may know. Others may not have this problem.
>> > >
>> > > Youneverknow.
>> > >
>> > > --
>> > > -Wilson
>> > > -----
>> > > All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
>> > > come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> > > -Mark Twain
>> > >
>> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> > >
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>>
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>
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