[Ads-l] "dumpster diver" -- early, but is it an antedating?

ADSGarson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Mon Nov 30 00:22:55 UTC 2015


Fred wrote:
> Are you thinking that the Google Books record is for a single issue?
> It seems clear to me that the record is for a seven-year period,
> and we don't know at all where within the seven-year period
> the "dumpster diver" occurrence falls.=0A=

Following up on Fred's comment: It can be quite difficult to determine
the range of years within a single tome in Google Books. A search for
"1993" reveals that the tome under examination contains the following
issue:

Winter 1992 / 1993
Volume 19, Number 4

Searching for 1986, 1987, 1988, etcetera reveals issues from other
years are present.

It also looks like the page number is reset to zero multiple times
within the tome. So each issue probably starts with 1 (alternatively,
each year might start with 1). This means that the page number does
not help to determine the year.

Garson
________________________________=0A=
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Peter =
> Morris [peter_morris_1 at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK]=0A=
> Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2015 6:57 PM=0A=
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU=0A=
> Subject: "dumpster diver" -- early, but is it an antedating?=0A=
> =0A=
> Fred, I know how unreliable Google dating is. But did you follow my second =
> link?=0A=
> =0A=
> Searching the issue for '1985'  showed 3 out of 90 results.=0A=
> =0A=
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=3Dhttp-3A__tinyurl.com_ozlto7a&d=
> =3DAwIFAw&c=3D-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=3DsRkhHMQo6W5Ird1lkQFqb23bCfSHAR2XjU=
> SUG53db5M&m=3DzOcVPSm1aVEQFisWvbtJdzCCofwWmD9GOUYxlIRU3OI&s=3D3ZHsn0pzbX2Sq=
> yGtNDfS7HP17HvGZIiTCJVTtvAPPVE&e=3D=0A=
> =0A=
> This is why I think it's an antedating:=0A=
> =0A=
> The first is the issue's masthead, with a dating "winter into spring 1985" =
> which sounds like early in the year.=0A=
> =0A=
> The second is an advert accepting bookings for an event to take place on Ju=
> ne 29th 1985.=0A=
> Can we reasonably assume that publication was at least a few weeks pror to =
> that?=0A=
> =0A=
> The third is an article saying that someone has been working in a position =
> since 1985.=0A=
> That's a bit of a puzzler, but I suspect it's a typo.=0A=
> =0A=
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