[Ads-l] "Afric" -- Gaps in OED3

[Laurence Horn]

Note that in each of the examples here the bisyllabic (and trochaic) rendering of "Afric" as against the standardly trisyllabic (dactylic) version in "Africa" is metrically motivated.

LH

> On Apr 7, 2016, at 1:35 PM, Joel Berson <berson at att.net> wrote:
> 
> For "Afric", noun, OED3, updated Sept. 2012, has only the definition as a person.  The quotations have the customary lack of 18th-century examples, with a long gap from 1606 to 1821.  There is no definition for "Afric" as a place.
> 
> For "Afric", adj., OED3 has a gap between 1733 and 1834.
> 
> 
> The following all arose from Manisha Sinha, The Slave's Cause, A History of Abolition (Yale University Press, 2016).  I have not traced sources, so I have few primary source titles or page numbers.
> 
> 
> I.  Noun.
> 
> A.  Person: Mind the gap.
> 
> 
> 1773.  "MNEME begin. Inspire, ye sacred nine, / Your vent’rous Afric in her great design."  Phillis Wheatley, "On Recollection".  Sinha, page 30, par. 1.
> 
> B.  Place: No quotations.
> 
> 
> (1)  1773.  "I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate / Was snatch'd from Afric's fancy'd happy seat".  Phillis Whealey.  [Poem title not known to me.]  Sinha, page 31, last par.  In Phillis Wheatley, Poems on Various Subjects.
> 
> 
> (2)  [Circa 1775.]  "But how, presumptuous shall we hope to find / Divine acceptance with th' Almighty mind -- / While yet (O deed ungenerous!) they disgrace / And hold in bondage Afric's blameless race?"  Phillis Wheatley.  Unpublished.  Sinha, page 32, par. 3.  Probably in Phillis Wheatley, The Collected Works of PhillisWheatley, ed. John C. Shields (OxfordUniv. Press, 1988), page 149.
> 
> 
> C.  Adjective: Gap.
> 
> 
> 1771.  "Shall [Whitefield’s] due praises be so loudlysung / By a young Afric damsels virgin tongue? / And I be silent!l".  Jane Dunlap.  [Untitled.]  Sinha, page 30, par. 3.  Probably in Dunlap, Poems Upon Several Sermons, page 17.
> -----
> Other examples from the 18th century should be locatable in the usual suspects -- er, databases (including EAI), and perhaps earlier uses of "Afric" as a place name can also be found.
> 
> 
> Joel
> 
> 
> 
> 
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