Antedating of "Fellow Traveler"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Jun 12 00:19:40 UTC 2014


On the same topic, is there an early cite for "useful idiot", which was supposedly used by Lenin in this sense, but apparently hasn't been found in Lenin's work?  It's been revived in the right-wing blogosphere and/or Fox News to characterize Democrats who have been putatively "duped" by leftists, Islamists, or whoever.

LH

On Jun 11, 2014, at 7:51 PM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:

> fellow traveler (OED, 2., 1936)
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> 1933 _N.Y. Times Book Review_ 23 Apr. 2 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)  ROMANOF is a "fellow traveler," as Trotsky phrased it, more generally and sympathetically read by the Western world than by Russia.
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> Fred Shapiro
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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



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