[Ads-l] Word: affluenza (back in the news; Guardian article) also 1918 citation

ADSGarson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Thu Jan 7 00:04:51 UTC 2016


Preamble on a different topic: Congratulations: to Bonnie for the
excellent citations about wrestling hogs; To Fred and Bill for
excellent "Big Apple" citations; to Bill and Peter for excellent
"snake eyes" citations; To Fred for a great "jack pot" citation; and
to others I missed.

Affluenza is back in the news because of a teen (and the teen's
mother) who absquatulated to Mexico. I was contacted by the
editor-assistant of the journalist who wrote the following recent
article for the Guardian. I supplied the pair with details for the
1908 citation that I posted to the ADS list back in December 2013 as
requested. The Guardian article included a scan for the 1908 citation.

Website: The Guardian at theguardian.com
Article: Society: Affluenza: a plague on both their houses, their cars
and their yacht
Author: Sarah Kershaw (assistant Paul Norton)
Timestamp: January 4, 2016 14.01 EST

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/04/affluenza-history-disease-wealth-privilege-ethan-couch

The journalist and assistant deserve great praise for the effort,
care, and research that went into creating the article, in my opinion.

They do use an Ngram graph for "affluenza" which may have been
distorted by inaccurately dated material in the GB corpus. For
example, I do not know if verified citations in the 1800s exist.

http://bit.ly/1O5RAzZ

Below is an instance of wordplay that used the term "affluenza" in
1918. It is a one-line quip. I do not think the intended meaning
matched the modern meaning, but this citation may still be pertinent
to researchers.

Date: October 12, 1918
Newspaper: The Houston Post
Newspaper Location: Houston, Texas
Article: Early Morning Observations
Author: George M. Bailey
Quote Page 6, Column 3
Database: Newspapers.com

[Begin excerpt]
It is not the sneezing of the Spanish influenza that Liberty needs,
but a little more "coughing" on the part of American affluenza.
[End excerpt]

Garson

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