[Ads-l] A lost citation surfaces

[Michael Quinion]

While compiling a piece on the idiom /lie doggo/ for today's World Wide 
Words newsletter ( http://wwwords.org/yapt ), I came across a query sent 
to /Notes and Queries/ in April 1896 by one J A H Murray of Oxford:

“DOGGO.” — What is it to /lie doggo/; and what is the history of 
/doggo/? Is it a mock Latin ablative of manner? ... An earlier instance 
differently spelt I have from /Society/ of 7 October, 1882, p. 23, col. 
1: “To-day’s meet of the London Athletic Club will be remarkable for the 
resurrection of E. L. Lockton after lying ‘doggoh’ some time.”


No response came to his enquiry and the word didn’t appear in the first 
edition of the OED, perhaps because it wasn’t then widely known. Dr 
Murray’s finding seems to have been mislaid and the citation wasn’t 
included in the entry for the idiom that appeared in the /Supplement/ in 
1933; it’s not in the current online edition either, though it antedates 
the first citation in the entry by two years.

To mislay the first-known occurrence of a term may be thought 
unfortunate, especially when it was recorded by one’s founding editor. 
The OED says it will be added when the entry is next updated. I’m 
delighted to have been able to resurrect Murray’s discovery.

-- 
Michael Quinion, World Wide Words
http://www.worldwidewords.org


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