[Ads-l] Pre-1988 "dead pool"?

[Neal Whitman]

Wikipedia notes "death pool" as a variant. A Google Books search for 
"death pool" brings up this 1916 attestation:


      High Speed - Page 287
      <https://books.google.com/books?id=LhFCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA287&dq=%22death+pool%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj83L6K6K7KAhUMNz4KHUL1CGYQ6AEIRzAG>

<https://books.google.com/books?id=LhFCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA287&dq=%22death+pool%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj83L6K6K7KAhUMNz4KHUL1CGYQ6wEISDAG>https://books.google.com/books?id=LhFCAQAAMAAJ
Clinton Holland Stagg 
<https://www.google.com/search?biw=1280&bih=638&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1/1/1900,cd_max:12/31/1920&tbm=bks&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Clinton+Holland+Stagg%22&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj83L6K6K7KAhUMNz4KHUL1CGYQ9AgISTAG> 
- 1916 - ‎Read 
<https://books.google.com/books?id=LhFCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA287&dq=%22death+pool%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj83L6K6K7KAhUMNz4KHUL1CGYQuwUISjAG> 
- ‎More editions 
<https://www.google.com/search?biw=1280&bih=638&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1/1/1900,cd_max:12/31/1920&tbm=bks&q=editions:l0pAjpVkLLQC&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj83L6K6K7KAhUMNz4KHUL1CGYQmBYISzAG>/
Death Pool/, and with them had gone the fool spectators who had been in 
the way; the men who would kill the game as they had killed the drivers 
who had swerved to save them. Mighty good thing they didn't get a share 
of the /Death Pool/ ...

On 1/16/2016 12:01 PM, Neal Whitman wrote:
> The most recent spate of celebrity deaths got me thinking about "dead 
> pools," as written about, for example, in this article:
>
> “You Bet Their Life” by Evan Forster New York Magazine Sep 22, 1997, p.20
> https://books.google.com/books?id=2ugCAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA20&dq=%22dead%20pool%22&pg=PA20#v=onepage&q=%22dead%20pool%22&f=false
>
> The earliest attestations of "dead pool" in Google Books, ProQuest, 
> and NewsBank are all from 1988, referring to Clint Eastwood's final 
> Dirty Harry movie "The Dead Pool," screenplay by Buddy Van Horn. I'm 
> wondering if van Horn coined the phrase, or heard it and used it. (The 
> Marvel character Deadpool, soon to have his own movie, was created in 
> 1991.) Antedatings are welcome!
>
> Neal 

-- 
Dr. Neal Whitman
Lecturer, ESL Composition
School of Teaching and Learning
College of Education and Human Ecology
Arps Hall
1945 North High Street
whitman.11 at osu.edu
(614) 260-1622


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