[Ads-l] picker

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

The OED does not have specialized citations for antique pickers or
garbage pickers (although it does list rag-pickers). The pertinent
sense in the OED is more general.

[Begin excerpt]
picker, n.1
6. A person who picks out, chooses, or selects.
1778   W. Pryce Min. Cornubiensis 234   Women and children sit to pick
out the good stones of Ore, and are from thence called Pickers.
1811   J. Farey Gen. View Agric. Derbyshire I. 373   Women, called
Pickers,..pick out the clean pieces of Ore, and put them into the
Ore-whisket.
[End excerpt]

Below is the first citation for rag-picker.

[Begin excerpt]
A rag-picker; a person who picks through rubbish in order to salvage scraps.
1884   Cassell's Family Mag. Feb. 156/2   The pickers, who are mostly
Italians, gather £150,000 worth [of rags] yearly in the streets and
roads.
[End excerpt]

Garson
On Sun, Oct 28, 2018 at 1:44 PM ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Garson O'Toole wrote:
> > > Here is a "picker" in 1928. The term is enclosed in quotation marks,
> > > but this "picker" seems to be acquiring antiques for personal use
> > > instead of resale.
>
> Amy West wrote:
> > In my personal lexicon, picking -- or garbage/trash/refuse picking --
> > does not have to be finding discarded stuff for resale. In fact, picking
> > for personal use is the primary sense to me. "Dumpster diving" is a
> > later synonym for me. As an impoverished kid/college student, I engaged
> > in garbage picking -- oh, look at that box of musty-smelling old books
> > on the curb. Must take home!
>
> Here is "garbage-picker" in 1868.
>
> Date: November 29, 1868
> Newspaper: The Daily Journal
> Newspaper Location: Wilmington, North Carolina
> Article: Variety
> Quote Page 4, Column 1
> Database: Newspapers.com
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> A Philadelphia garbage-picker hooked out $50,000 in currency the other
> day.--But it was counterfeit.
> [End excerpt]
>
> The late Joel Berson started a thread discussing "dumpster diver" in 2015:
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2015-November/139939.html
>
> Garson

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