Q: "Whale [and ghost printer]" in 1707?

[Joel S. Berson]

At 9/9/2014 03:25 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:

>Here is a layperson's guess: In the context a whale printer might be a
>printer of remarkable and/or improbable tales.
>
>The OED has a relevant slang sense, but it is attached to the full
>phrase "very like a whale" used by Shakespeare and later used
>allusively. There is also the extraordinary Biblical tale of Jonah and
>the whale.
>
>
>[Begin excerpt]
>whale, n.
>5. Allusive, proverbial, transf., and fig. uses of sense 1.
>
>a. Prov. phr. (to throw out) a tub to the whale : see tub n.1 9b
>very like a whale (after Shakespeare Hamlet iii. ii. 398): see quot.
>1859.
>
>1859   J. C. Hotten Dict. Slang 115   Very like a whale, said of
>anything that is very improbable.
>[End excerpt]

This is a very plausible hypothesis, if we extend "improbable" to 
"likely false or misrepresented".  A "ghost printer" who presents a 
false (or hidden) face might also present a false story.  That's what 
I'll represent to the OED editors.


>Here is a link to a reprint of the passage, I think:
>
>http://bit.ly/1qe0Qs7

Yes this is the passage I was quoting from, "The Works of Thomas 
Brown", second volume.  There are probably many impressions, with 
many titles, but most don't have such prominent, and as Brown might 
have written priapic (and sheathed), forefingers.  Garson's is a late 
impression (1760); the earliest is probably 1703 and the one I quoted 
from is 1707.

Joel


>http://books.google.com/books?id=d5UTAAAAQAAJ&q=%22whale+and+ghost%22#v=snippet&
>
>Garson
>
>
>On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 12:59 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header 
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      Q:  "Whale [and ghost printer]" in 1707?
> > 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > What is "whale" in "Jerry Scandal, Whale and Ghost Printer in
> > White-Friars, had plagued the Town above Ten Years with Apparitions,
> > Murders, Catechisms, and the like Stuff"?  1707, "Works of Thomas Brown".
> >
> > Joel

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