[Ads-l] Olympics-related WOTY? (UNCLASSIFIED)

[MULLINS, WILLIAM D (Bill) CIV USARMY RDECOM AMRDEC (US)]

CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED

Slightly earlier:

_The Sporting Life_ 10 Aug 1907 p 5 col 4
"Nick Altrock continues to be the goat. He is the unlucky pitcher of the team this year, and to date has won four games, lost eleven and tied one."



> The Grammarphobia notes that goat has been used negatively in sports "as a derisive term for a player responsible for a team’s loss".
> Grammarphobia provides an excellent citation via The Dickson Baseball Dictionary (3rd ed.), by Paul Dickson. The citation is dated October
> 10, 1909. Here is an instance from a few months earlier:
> 
> Date: April 24, 1909
> Newspaper: Denver Post
> Newspaper Location: Denver, Colorado
> Quote Page 7, Column 4
> Database:GenealogyBank
> 
> [Begin excerpt]
> It was all a question of luck, which broke the wrong way, as it sometimes will. The Sox inserted their bad breaks in the wrong places, and it
> is with grief we announce the blowing up of Pilot Bill. He was the goat all right and is in position to cuss himself good and plenty.
> If Bill had not included that cloud-rasping throw in the eighth the champions would not have been able to tie on Doc's wild pitch in the
> eleventh.
> [End excerpt]
> 
> 
CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED

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