Gentlemen of the Pivot

[Laurence Horn]

On Aug 20, 2014, at 1:24 PM, David Daniel wrote:

> Gentlemen of the Pivot are watchmakers? Bizarre, not a single hit on Google.

Not even for Shaquille O'Neal, Dwight Howard & Co.?

LH
> 
> 
> Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Subject:      Gentlemen of the Pivot
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> ---
> 
> Here is a circumlocution for "watchmaker", from 1771:
> 
>            LENT by, or stolen from Isaac Heron, Watch-maker, about two
> Months ago, a Silver-cased Watch, with Silver Face, nam'd H. Clay, London,
> 3630.  If lent, -- 'twas not forever; and if stolen, -- may the Thief be
> detected! or, Compunction rend his guilty Heart, 'till he restore it.
> 
>            The Gentlemen of the Pivot, in whose way it may come, are
> requested to have an Eye to the above Name and Number.  The Person who
> takes it up, or gives Intelligence of it, shall be gratefully rewarded
> by  Isaac
> Heron.
> 
>            New-York Gazette; and the Weekly Mercury, August 19, 1771,
> supplement, p. 1, col. 2
> I've not encountered this elsewhere, and it seems not in the OED.
> 
> GAT
> 
> -- 
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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