[Ads-l] fall guy (1895)

[Jonathan Lighter]

Haven't checked, but "big mitt" and "blow-off" look like significant
antedatings as well.

An "elbow" was usu. a detective. Is that the case here as well?

JL

On Thu, Aug 27, 2015 at 2:00 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      fall guy (1895)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> My Wall St. Journal column this week is on the history of the term "fall
> guy":
>
>
> http://www.wsj.com/articles/fall-guys-in-sports-crime-and-politics-1440692105
>
> (As usual, you can Google the headline -- "Fall Guys in Sports, Crime
> and Politics" -- if you hit the paywall.)
>
> HDAS dates the term to 1904 and OED2 to 1906. Michael Quinion's World
> Wide Words site inaccurately gives a cite dated as 1883 (which is
> repeated in GDoS):
>
> http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-fal1.htm
>
> The Life Magazine article in question (confirmed by ProQuest's
> American Periodicals Series) actually appeared in the July 1932 issue.
> Google Books had previously misdated a snippet view of this volume as
> 1883 (the first year that Life was published).
>
> The earliest cites I found in the newspaper databases start in 1895 --
> clustered in Western cities, especially Denver. The majority of these
> fit the definition 'person who is easily duped' (HDAS sense 2,
> beginning with the 1906 cite also given by OED2 from Helen Green's _At
> the Actors's Boarding House_).
>
> Here are the pre-1900 cites I've come across.
>
> ---
> Rocky Mountain News (Denver), Dec. 16, 1895, p. 8, col. 5 [GenealogyBank]
> William Farragarger, who played the part of the "fall guy" in the
> poker game which netted the Seventeenth street grafters $1,100 is now
> a quasi prisoner in a Denver hotel, where he was stored away by Chief
> Goulding, who advised him to keep in seclusion so that the bunco men
> might not find him and rob him of the $140 returned to him by them to
> enable the "sucker" to get out of the country.
> ---
> http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045604/1896-03-27/ed-1/seq-8/
> Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Mar. 27, 1896, p. 8, col. 4
> Earl Reese, commonly called the "Corduroy Kid," and Finch Vidler, a
> well-known young man about town, played a match game of pool at the
> Columbia beer hall Wednesday afternoon. Reese won by a score of 100 to
> 96, and walked away with a cool $100 that had belonged to Capt. Swift
> of the steamer Mabel...
> The business being over and Reese having obtained Swift's $100 from
> the stakeholder, it is almost needless to say that the captain retired
> to a secluded nook and commenced to figure out the meaning of the
> words "double cross" and "fall guy." Finally he came to the conclusion
> that he had been swindled...
> ---
> Denver Post, May 8, 1896, p. 3, col. 1 [GenealogyBank]
> The game which the Evans-Stevenson-Coe combine has set out to
> accomplish is beyond any question the smoothest ever attempted to be
> worked off on the people of Colorado. In this game Senator Teller is
> to be used as the "fall guy," to use the choice term of the combine.
> ---
> Denver Post, Jan. 15, 1898, p. 10, col. 4
> Emerich said he had to wear whiskers once when O'Brien was chief, and
> he thought it wasn't right for him to be what he termed the "fall
> guy."
> [The police chief wanted an officer to impersonate a woman for an
> undercover operation.]
> ---
> http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90059523/1898-04-25/ed-1/seq-2/
> Saint Paul Globe, Apr. 25, 1898, p. 2, col. 3
> "Dere's goin' ter be trub, an' I'm duckin'," said Door Mat Jimmy last
> night. "Bli' me, if dem petty larceny stiffs didn't leave Grif up in
> de air, an' w'en he comes down its a bet dat he's goin' ter give some
> ov dem an awful slap on de wrist wid a brick er sum'tin'. Dey comes
> down here an' gets him in line wid de bull con, an' he's de real t'ing
> an' dey'll fix der license gag an' all dat, an' w'en it comes ter de
> blow off, an' Grif has de fall guy all stalled up fer de front at de
> council, w'y dey kicks de barrel frum under him an' dere yer are, an'
> dere he is!"
> ---
> http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90059523/1898-05-15/ed-1/seq-5/
> Saint Paul Globe, May 15, 1898, p. 5, col. 6
> Mayor Doran yesterday made a futile effort to close up "Mayor"
> Griffin's saloon, 33 East Seventh street. Since "Mayor" Griffin
> quietly submitted to the arrest of half a dozen of his bartenders in
> the crusade inaugurated against him a week ago, he has changed his
> mind about being made a "fall guy," as he expresses it, and is now
> determined to resist the interference of the police with his business,
> even to the use of force, if any of the police officers attempt to
> make his place their headquarters.
> ---
> http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90059523/1898-08-28/ed-1/seq-4/
> Saint Paul Globe, Aug. 28, 1898, p. 4, col. 4
> Some one told Henry Johns the other day that he had never had but one
> good race and then he lost it. Cochran, the fellow said, was put up
> for a "fall guy" and John E. Hearn was a "frost."
> ---
> Denver Post, Sept. 9, 1898, p. 5, col. 3
> "Deep Disgrace. Well-Known Shell Man Arrested by a Common Dog Catcher."
> Tom Keady, the three-shell man...was arrested this morning by the dog
> catcher... He was charged with creating a disturbance and was soon
> released on bonds furnished by Billy Malone. While in jail he said:
> "What! Do you think I'm a fall guy for a common old dog catcher, and
> all because I did not want to put on me collar."
> ---
> Denver Post, Sept. 18, 1898, p. 19, col. 2
> The contest was fought in private with not more than a dozen present
> and for a $5,000 side bet. Wonder who was the "fall guy" for cunning
> Charlie?
> ---
> http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90059523/1898-09-25/ed-1/seq-10/
> Saint Paul Globe, Sept. 25, 1898, p. 10, col. 2
> The Third ward Democrats are out after the scalp of Andrew Holm, who
> was nominated by the Republicans, as a "fall guy" candidate for the
> legislature, and at a meeting last evening indorsed Patrick Conley for
> the lower house.
> ---
> http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045604/1898-10-28/ed-1/seq-12/
> Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Oct. 28, 1898, p. 12, col. 4
> James Conway, who is a grocer on King street is regarded as the "fall
> guy" on the ticket. This was the way a First warder put it yesterday.
> A "fall guy" in the language of the Tenderloin, is a susceptible
> individual who can be made to part with his money on small
> provocation. It is said by First ward Populists that Mr. Conway is
> contributing generously to the campaign fund: in fact that the chief
> expenses for the whole legislative ticket in the First have been born
> by the grocer.
> ---
> Denver Post, Oct. 30, 1898, p. 18, col. 1
> Hugh J.J. Smart says he is a prize fighter and an all 'round athlete
> from the East...  "I won't stand for no touch like that; it's highway
> robbery. If me friends knowed I'd stood for a fall guy I'd never get
> another go with anybody. I'm a prize fighter and an all 'round athlete
> but I ain't to be robbed that way."
> ---
> Denver Post, Nov. 27, 1898, p. 13, col. 6
> Say, dat Googy is a great fall guy w'en de Parson han's him de hot air.
> ---
> Denver Post, Dec. 4, 1898, p. 14, col. 6
> It's a lucky ting fer Plunk dat he is up nort' or dat elbow mob 'd be
> makin' him de fall guy fer everyt'ing w'at's come off.
> ---
> Denver Post, Jan. 2, 1899, p. 11, col. 1
> And on this occasion no less a person than the shrewd and cunning
> Charley Mitchell was the "fall guy" as it were.
> ---
> http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1899-02-22/ed-1/seq-7/
> San Francisco Call, Feb. 22, 1899, p. 7, col. 3
> O'Connell was also a starter in the race, but, to use a gambling
> phrase, was only the "fall guy."
> ---
> http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1899-04-16/ed-1/seq-9/
> San Francisco Call, Apr. 16, 1899, p. 9, col. 4
> He fumed inwardly and fretted outwardly and got himself into such a
> state of mind that he was not sure he was playing poker or was the
> "fall guy" in a big mitt game. He played worse and worse, and finally
> quit, thirty odd dollars to the bad, most of it in the possession of
> "that soft mark, Bill Broderick."
> ---
>
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