spycraft; tradecraft

[Neal Whitman]

Actually, I did find on pre-1960 attestation, though I didn't recognize
it at first, as it came from an issue of /The Business Lawyer./ Looking
closer, though, it's in proximity with "intelligence" and "agent."

    ...obviously have and will continue [sic] to play a major role in
    the finding, acquisition, and analysis of intelligence.

    Nevertheless, current evidence shows a continuing need in many cases
    for the individual agent, personal access to the information desired
    and the use of the time-worn /tradecraft/techniques. I cannot deny
    the fascination which this ...

    http://books.google.com/books?id=ZU8tAAAAIAAJ&q=%22tradecraft%22&dq=%22tradecraft%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cTZiUeimF5TtqAH60oCQBA&ved=0CC4Q6AEwADgK*
    *

Neal
**

On 2/10/2014 11:47 PM, Neal Whitman wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Neal Whitman <nwhitman at AMERITECH.NET>
> Subject:      Re: spycraft; tradecraft
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> They do have one more citation from 1979:
>
>      1979 /Observer/ <javascript:void(0)>30 Dec. 7/7 At every juncture of
>      the break-in he made decisions that proved catastrophic, applied
>      'trade craft' that was ludicrous, and misled his accomplices about
>      matters that were either incriminating to himself or strategic to
>      the break-in's failure.
>
> I've also found some attestations via Google Books and ProQuest from the
> 1970s, all with the word in quotation marks, as in the above example.
>
> I haven't found any earlier attestations than 1961, but one that I
> recorded because it got me interested in this topic was this one from
> /Zero Dark Thirty/ (2012):
>
>      Over the course of two months he's called home from six different
>      pay phones, from two different cities, never using the same phone
>      twice. And when his mother asked him where he was, he lied. He said
>      that he was in a place in the country with bad cell reception -
>      implying he was in the Tribals - but he was in Peshawar. I'm sorry,
>      but that's not normal guy behavior. That's tradecraft.
>
> My first encounter with "tradecraft" was in reading Tim Powers'
> one-sentence summary of his low-fantasy novel /Declare,/ published in
> the early 2000s, which combines genies with early Cold War spying;
> Powers said it's "tradecraft meets Lovecraft."
>
> Neal
>
> On 2/10/2014 10:43 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      spycraft; tradecraft
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Can you believe OED doesn't have an entry for "spycraft"? (455,000 raw
>> hits.)
>>
>> And its treatment of the now synonymous "tradecraft" (one cite from 1961)
>> is inadequate.
>>
>> In fact, the latter is now virtually synonymous with "spying."  Lo:
>>
>> http://www.upi.com/blog/2014/02/06/State-Department-calls-leaked-diplomatic-conversation-a-new-low-in-Russian-tradecraft/2281391726555/#ixzz2svyy9kVh
>>
>> "WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- A private conversation between U.S. Ambassador
>> to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland
>> was recorded and posted to YouTube on Tuesday, a leak that the State
>> Department seemed to attribute to Russia and referred to as 'a new low in
>> Russian tradecraft' at a daily press briefing on Thursday."
>>
>> Observe the lack of antecedent, a strong indicator of lexicalization.
>>
>> JL
>>
>>
>> --
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>>
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