[Ads-l] "blimp" antedating

[Dan Goncharoff]

I have seen the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons called blimps, so
the tethered balloon definition makes sense to me.

On Sat, Jun 8, 2019, 6:34 PM Barretts Mail <mail.barretts at gmail.com> wrote:

> The OED has:
>
> 1. A small non-rigid airship. Also: a large tethered balloon, as a barrage
> balloon.
> 2a. colloquial and depreciative (orig. and chiefly North American). An
> excessively fat person.
>
> BB
>
> > On 8 Jun 2019, at 15:31, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> wrote:
> >
> > This gives me the chance to observe that the celebrated British balloon
> > that depicts Donald Trump as a squalling infant is generally described on
> > cable news as "the Trump baby blimp."
> >
> > Despite its tubbiness, it is not a "blimp" at all.  It is a "captive
> > balloon" or "aerostat."
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Fri, Jun 7, 2019 at 11:32 AM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> My latest Wall Street Journal column is on the history of the word
> "blimp."
> >>
> >>
> >>
> https://www.wsj.com/articles/blimp-a-world-war-i-term-thats-taken-on-a-weighted-meaning-11559918882
> >>
> >> The OED and various other references give as their earliest citation of
> >> "blimp" a letter written by Royal Naval Air Service pilot Harold Rosher
> >> dated Feb. 11, 1916, collected posthumously in "With the Flying
> Squadron"
> >> (also titled "In the Royal Naval Air Service"). By searching on the
> British
> >> Newspaper Archive I was able to make a small but important antedating.
> >>
> >> "This Morning's Gossip," Daily Mirror, Jan. 25, 1916, p. 12, col. 2
> >> I was amused to hear what the Air Service call the lighter-than-air
> >> machines, i.e., the airships and balloons. They call them "blimps,"
> >> "submarine searchers" and "babies." But why "blimps," I wonder.
> >>
> >>
> https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000560/19160125/100/0012
> >>
> >> Even pushing back the earliest print date a few weeks is significant,
> since
> >> the most widely accepted origin story for "blimp" is that it was coined
> on
> >> Dec. 5, 1915 (by Lt. A.D. Cunningham, commanding officer at the
> >> Capel-le-Ferne air base, where Rosher encountered the term).
> >>
> >> You can see a page image of the Daily Mirror item here:
> >> https://twitter.com/bgzimmer/status/1137014809814286338
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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