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

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



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