[Ads-l] "Noun adjective."
Yagoda, Ben
byagoda at UDEL.EDU
Sun Nov 9 15:15:46 UTC 2014
>From a 10/31 news report: "Five football players from California University of Pennsylvania were arrested and suspended from the school after police say they beat and stomped a man outside an off-campus restaurant, then fled yelling 'Football strong!'”
That brought to mind the slogan the city of Boston adopted after the Marathon bombing of 2013: "Boston strong."
I also recently learned that the city of Barrett, Pennsylvania, the center of a recent manhunt for an armed fugitive, has taken the motto "Barrett Proud."
All this made me wonder if anyone on this list has any insights to the origin, or grammar, of this construction. The most prominent early use I'm aware of is the slogan "Built Ford Tough," which has been around at least since 1986. (http://books.google.com/books?id=_Z0iAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Ford+tough%22&dq=%22Ford+tough%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=zIRfVPz6AaTfsATorIAQ&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA)
Ben
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Subject: ADS-L Digest - 7 Nov 2014 to 8 Nov 2014 (#2014-140)
There are 7 messages totaling 331 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Adages: Easy writing's vile hard reading & Easy reading is damn hard
writing
2. Article on "Preppy," "Jock," and "Wonk" (2)
3. exergual (2)
4. More on "Negro"
5. "jockstrap" < "jockey strap" when?
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Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2014 01:18:12 -0500
From: ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Adages: Easy writing's vile hard reading & Easy reading is damn hard writing
Thanks to Bonnie and ECCO Eighteenth Century Collections Online I've
finally finished and posted three new entries on the QI website.
Despite the claims in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (2012), The
Times Book of Quotations (2000), and other references I learned that
the 1799 compilation of biographical sketches by William Seward was
titled Biographiana and not Biographia.
Easy Writing's Vile Hard Reading
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/11/04/easy-writing/
Easy Reading Is Hard Writing
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/11/05/hard-writing/
What Is Written Without Effort Is In General Read Without Pleasure
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/11/08/without-effort/
Garson
On Sun, Nov 2, 2014 at 2:30 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> List members: With considerable kindness and alacrity Bonnie sent me
> "The Rival Beauties; A Poetical Contest" which included "Clio's
> Protest; Or, The Picture Varnished". The date of the introductory
> letter was January 26, 1772.
>
> Many thanks,
> Garson
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 2, 2014 at 12:22 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole
> <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I've have received two requests to examine the provenance of the
>> following saying:
>>
>> Easy reading is damn hard writing.
>>
>> During the exploration I've found another statement with a different
>> meaning that historically has caused some confusion:
>>
>> Easy writing's vile hard reading.
>>
>> Now, I hope to create entries for both sayings. The Yale Book of
>> Quotations and the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations have entries for a
>> couplet written by Sheridan. Both claim 1771 as the date of
>> composition:
>>
>> [Begin excerpt]
>> You write with ease, to show your breeding,
>> But easy writing's vile hard reading.
>> "Clio's Protest" (written 1771)
>> [End excerpt]
>>
>> Google Books has a 1786 collection titled "The New Foundling Hospital
>> for Wit" which included "Clio's Protest", but earlier evidence would
>> be desirable.
>>
>> Perhaps someone with access to one of the early English databases
>> would be willing to look for the couplet above. The goal is to
>> construct a complete and accurate citation for the couplet or the full
>> poem.
>>
>> Below is the earliest citation I've located so far:
>>
>> [ref] 1786, The New Foundling Hospital for Wit: Being a Collection of
>> Fugitive Pieces, in Prose and Verse, Not in Any Other Collection,
>> Poem: Clio's Protest or, the Picture Varnished, Addressed to the
>> Honourable Lady M-rg-r-t F-rd-ce, By Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Start
>> Page 117, Quote Page 130, Printed for J. Debrett, Opposite Burlington
>> House in Piccadilly, London. (Google Books Full View) link [/ref]
>>
>> http://books.google.com/books?id=migJAAAAQAAJ&q=%22vile+hard%22#v=snippet&
>>
>> [Begin excerpt]
>> You write with ease, to shew your breeding;
>> But easy writing's vile hard reading.
>> [End excerpt]
>>
>> Your help is appreciated,
>> Garson
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Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2014 15:16:42 +0000
From: "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
Subject: Article on "Preppy," "Jock," and "Wonk"
In the November/December 2014 issue of the Yale Alumni Magazine, my regular column treats the origin of the words "preppy," "jock," and "wonk":
http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/3988/preppy-jock-and-wonk
In this column I discuss my long-standing theory that the three words all originated in a tripartite classification of Harvard students, although I have now found that the earliest evidence for "jock" comes from Princeton instead of Harvard.
I have posted most of the citations in this column previously on ADS-L, but one point I have not yet made on this list is that the earliest citation for "preppy," which I previously sourced to the Yale Daily News, Nov. 24, 1951, actually turns out not to be an issue of the Yale Daily News, but rather to be a parody of the YDN produced by the Harvard Crimson.
Fred Shapiro
Editor
YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS (Yale University Press)
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Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2014 12:26:24 -0500
From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Article on "Preppy," "Jock," and "Wonk"
On Nov 8, 2014, at 10:16 AM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
> In the November/December 2014 issue of the Yale Alumni Magazine, my regular column treats the origin of the words "preppy," "jock," and "wonk":
>
> http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/3988/preppy-jock-and-wonk
>
> In this column I discuss my long-standing theory that the three words all originated in a tripartite classification of Harvard students, although I have now found that the earliest evidence for "jock" comes from Princeton instead of Harvard.
>
> I have posted most of the citations in this column previously on ADS-L, but one point I have not yet made on this list is that the earliest citation for "preppy," which I previously sourced to the Yale Daily News, Nov. 24, 1951, actually turns out not to be an issue of the Yale Daily News, but rather to be a parody of the YDN produced by the Harvard Crimson.
>
Ah yes, those parodies on the eve (or day) of "The Game". If memory serves, that year it ended in a tie, not to be confused with the infamous tie in 1968 immortalized as "Harvard beats Yale 29-29", in the subsequent Crimson headline and the eponymous documentary.
LH
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Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2014 19:34:26 -0500
From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
Subject: exergual
1989 David Bevan _Literature and War_ (Amsterdam: Rodopi) 3: It is evident
that exergual quotations can serve not only to encapsulate emblematic
wisdom but also to reveal egregious folly.
Not, as OED and MW would have it, inscribed on a coin, but printed as an
epigraph.
JL
--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
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Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2014 19:38:42 -0500
From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: More on "Negro"
The upshot:
http://tinyurl.com/ogd3n65
JL
On Thu, Nov 6, 2014 at 7:31 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Re: More on "Negro"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Update:
>
> "The Army cannot say _who_ approved the word or _when_ it was added."
>
> In this version of the story, the word appears in "Army regulations."
>
> JL
>
> On Thu, Nov 6, 2014 at 7:16 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject: More on "Negro"
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > CNN: "The Army is scrambling to explain" why it has allowed the word
> > "Negro" to be used as a synonym for "black" or "African American."
> >
> > The word appears in a paragraph that is part of a general order updated
> in
> > October. No report on how long it's been there.
> >
> > Approval of the word is causing "controversy."
> >
> > The tone and affect of Barbara Starr's report suggest that this is a very
> > serious situation.
> >
> > JL
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2014 22:29:48 -0500
From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: exergual
On Sat, Nov 8, 2014 at 7:34 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
quoted:
> It is evident that exergual quotations can serve not only to encapsulate
> emblematic
> wisdom but also to reveal egregious folly.
>
I could not have stated the obvious any more clearly. :-(
--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain
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Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2014 23:37:20 -0500
From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
Subject: "jockstrap" < "jockey strap" when?
According to a quick Googling, "jock strap" appears in print from at least
1887, pace W:pedia.
Yet, "jockey strap" was the only form used in StL, whether by black
speakers in the 'hood or by white speakers at local prep schools, into the
1960's. Even "hang up the jock" was "hang up the jockey strap," when I
first heard it, ca. 1953.
Apparently, "the St. Louis 'hard A,' as in 'Arnament' and 'fArty'," as a
columnist in the StL Post-Dispatch has described it, isn't the only
peculiarity of the St. Louis speech island.
Youneverknow.
--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain
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End of ADS-L Digest - 7 Nov 2014 to 8 Nov 2014 (#2014-140)
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