[Ads-l] "to come right down to the brass" 1858

[Stephen Goranson]

A third early US use:
To come right down to the brass of the matter, though, and talk good old sound, substantial, machine sense, (however disagreeable it may be to me to go back on poetry,) I’ve struck a good thing and made a. pile (no allusion to our M. C.)

You and me, or, Sketches for both of us / By Hans Patrick Le Connor, (Jacob L. Bowman). page 47
Main Author: 	Bowman, Jacob L.
Language(s): 	English
Published: 	St. Louis, Mo. : G. Knapp, 1867
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.319510020961106;view=1up;seq=55

SG


________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society ... on behalf of Stephen Goranson ...
Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2015 9:29 AM
Another early, US, political "down to the brass":
03-05-1861 Plain Dealer , Cleveland OH p. 3, col. 1 [Am. Hist. Newsp.] "Jo Bows on the Presidents [and the qualities of their parents]":
"....If Jo Bows came down to the brass he would say, they, were more so."

SG



To: ...
Subject: [ADS-L] "to come right down to the brass" 1858

"Mr H H GRAY said, we have talked all around the question, and he thought it was time to come right down to the brass."

Transcript [accurate?] of a session on Wed. am, Jan. 27, 1858.

Headline: [No Headline]; Article Type: Legislative Acts/Legal Proceedings
Paper: Weekly Wisconsin Patriot, published as The Weekly Wisconsin Patriot; Date: 01-30-1858; Volume: 4; Issue: 35; Page: [2] col. 4  Location: Madison, Wisconsin


Stephen Goranson

http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/


PS The earliest reported use of "down to brass tacks" is Jan. 1863.

PPS [Other early uses are legislative, too.]

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