[Ads-l] Antedating of "Ivy Leaguer"

[Shapiro, Fred]

This particular article includes all the schools we now think of as the Ivy League except Brown is excluded.  Other articles, going back to the very earliest ones on Feb. 7, 1935, do include Brown.  Early proposals for a formal "Ivy League" sometimes mentioned Army and Navy as well.

Nowadays, when the "Ivy League" has such strong social and academic connotations, and Ivy League football is not of great importance in the sports world, we forget that the grouping was originally based on football rivalries and football policies.

Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Laurence Horn [laurence.horn at YALE.EDU]
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2014 11:18 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Antedating of "Ivy Leaguer"

On Dec 1, 2014, at 10:51 AM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:

> Ivy Leaguer (OED 1943)
>
> 1936 _New York Herald Tribune_ 11 May 22 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)  The Ivy Leaguers accounted for only 20 per cent of the I. C. 4-A prizes last year.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
Does the context (i.e. a list of the prizes) make it clear which colleges were taken to be included within that designation?

LH

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