[Ads-l] Dingbat (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Geoffrey Steven Nathan]

According to one (somewhat random) Pinterest website I turned up, Dingbats date back to 1911 where they were weird underground creatures who populated calendars distributed by Frosst (taken over by Merck) to physicians. 
When I was a kid in the fifties I loved them (my father was a physician). 

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/67413325646104865/ 

Geoffrey S. Nathan 
Faculty Liaison, C&IT 
and Professor, Linguistics Program 
http://blogs.wayne.edu/proftech/ 
+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) 

Nobody at Wayne State will EVER ask you for your password. Never send it to anyone in an email, no matter how authentic the email looks. 

----- Original Message -----

> From: "Bill CIV Mullins (US)" <william.d.mullins18.civ at MAIL.MIL>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Sent: Monday, March 23, 2015 1:59:53 PM
> Subject: Dingbat (UNCLASSIFIED)

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: "Mullins, Bill CIV (US)" <william.d.mullins18.civ at MAIL.MIL>
> Subject: Dingbat (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE

> OED has 1918 for "dingbat" =3D hobo

> _The Typographical Journal_ Oct 1903 p 375
> "I'm the box car artist who scorns what brakeys say;
> I'm the dude of the dingbat on the great panhandle line"
> Google books
> https://books.google.com/books?id=3DER8YAAAAYAAJ&pg=3DPA375#v=3Donepage&q&f=
> =3Dfalse

> For the ornamental piece of type, it has 1921.

> _The Inland Printer_ Nov 1914 p 193
> "The ornament cases were full of little flowers and dingbats and
> logotype "=
> and's," "the's," and "of's," and bits of artistically mutilated brass
> rule,=
> remnants of a by-gone day, "when the typographic art was in its
> glory," as=
> Bumpus frequently remarked to his friends."
> Google books=20
> https://books.google.com/books?id=3DHTY_AQAAMAAJ&pg=3DPA195

> _Postage_ Jan 1918 p. 6
> "The result is a new publication with generous-sized pages, giving
> plenty o=
> f room for display advertising, big, jolly dingbats by that
> delightfully hu=
> morous artist John Bliss, and just enough Thomas Drier copy mixed in
> to tak=
> e the commercial curse off the thing and make it interesting reading
> even f=
> or those who think they are not interested in office equipment."
> Google books
> https://books.google.com/books?id=3D1AA_AQAAMAAJ&pg=3DPT11#v=3Donepage&q&f=
> =3Dfalse

> _The Washington Newspaper_ Vol 4 1918 p. 85
> "They would rather listen to the editor of a daily tell them how to
> write a=
> pyramidal head or a hanging head, or how to make some other
> symmetrical di=
> ngbats that nobody cares a whoop for except some other printer."
> Google books
> https://books.google.com/books?id=3D555HAQAAIAAJ&pg=3DRA1-PA85&dq#v=3Donepa=
> ge&q&f=3Dfalse

> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE

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

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