[Ads-l] "raw deal," antedating and speculation

[Stephen Goranson]

OED has raw deal from 1912.
Green's Dictionary of Slang has it from 1896.

Of course, both "raw" and "deal" have several denotations and connotations.

These collocations, both from Omaha, Nebraska, are earlier:
 (a)
Omaha received another "raw deal" at the hands of the republicans when Lincoln was selected as the campaign headquarters.
Omaha World-Herald, Aug. 6, 1890, p. 4  col. 7 [AM. Hist. N.]
(b)
The weather gave everybody a rather raw deal yesterday. It suited the icemen though.
Omaha Daily Bee. Jan. 24, 1882, p. 6. col. 1 [LC]

Raw speculation:

A) "deal" as an allotment, in card playing and beyond, may be relevant.
B) "rough deal" is apparently older than "raw deal"; perhaps the latter was influenced by the sound of the former.
C) also apparently earlier than "raw deal" in the sense of allotment (or such), and perhaps diachronically relevant, is "raw deal" using OED deal n.3 1. a. "A slice sawn from a log of timber (now always of fir or pine)...." E.g. in:
1861, The Prince of Wales in Canada and the United States, p. 162 [GB]:
"This arch was the most extraordinary the Prince had seen....It was erected by the lumbermen....built entirely of planks of raw deal laid transversely, one over the other, without a nail or fastening of any kind."

Stephen



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