Antedating of "doolally"
Hugo
hugovk at GMAIL.COM
Mon Jun 2 12:33:40 UTC 2014
OED: 1925
A booklet titled The Way They Have in the Army (1916) by Thomas O'Toole has
a chapter on on Tommy's Private Language:
[Begin]
Doolally Tap. When a soldier becomes mentally unbalanced, he is said to
have received the " Doolally Tap." " Doolally " is a corruption of the name
of an Indian town, Deolali.
[End]
https://archive.org/details/waytheyhaveinarm00otooiala
The booklet was quoted in Australian newspapers the Brunswick and Coburg
Leader of Friday 12 May 1916 and The Australasian of the next day.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/87675352?searchTerm=doolally&searchLimits=dateTo=1917-12-31%7C%7C%7Csortby=dateDesc
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/142992293/15082252?searchTerm=doolally#pstart15082252
Hugo
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list