[Ads-l] Earliest Use of "Live Long and Prosper"

[Joel Berson]

During Jefferson's fifty years as Rip Van Winkle, did he sleep between appearances?

Joel


      From: Peter Reitan <pjreitan at HOTMAIL.COM>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2016 1:16 PM
 Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Earliest Use of "Live Long and Prosper"
   
I did a lot of digging on this phrase a year or so ago - some day I will put it all together in a blog post.

The upshot is that the phrase, in the familiar form, used as a sort of blessing, first appears in the 1830s, in American sources.  The phrase was made famous after 1860, by an American actor named Joseph Jefferson, in the role of Rip Van Winkle, which he played for about fifty years.  Although Rip Van Winkle was performed as a play as early as 1825, the line appears to have been added in later revisions made around 1860.

I found a few sources showing similar sentiments, but not presented as a sort of blessing. For example:

Thomas
Vincent, An Explicatory Catechism: or An
Explanation of the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism, New York, Lewis Dear,
1806, page 167.  Do all those then that
honour their parents, live long, and prosper upon the earth? (Later reprint of 17th Century book).

Another early example, presented as a blessing, but not in precisely the same language:

Sketches of Algiers (1826): Reprint of a Letter
from the Day of Algiers to the President of the United States. To his Majesty,
the Emperor of America, its adjacent and dependent provinces and coasts, and
wherever his government may extend, our noble friend, the support of the kings
of the nation of Jesus, the pillar of all Christian sovereigns, the most
glorious amongst the princes, elected amongst many lords and nobles, the happy,
the great, the amiable James Madison, Emperor of America, (may his reign be
happy and glorious, and his life long and prosperous,) wishing him long
possession of the seal of his blessed throne, and long life and health, Amen.

> Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 18:17:45 +0000
> From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
> Subject: Earliest Use of "Live Long and Prosper"
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> 
> The Star Trek Vulcan blessing, "Live long and prosper," has been around for=
>  a while on Earth, I believe.  Can anyone help me discover the earliest fin=
> dable occurrence of this phrase?=0A=
> =0A=
> Fred Shapiro=0A=
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
                                                 
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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