[Ads-l] Yet Further Antedating of "Smog"

[Mark Mandel]

Right you are. I was taking  "facetiously...unpleasant" as modifying "pure
white mist... than a 'Scotch Mist'" rather than "true British fog".

MAM

On Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 10:01 AM Margaret Winters <mewinters at wayne.edu> wrote:

> Doesn't "always colored" refer to the true British mist to which the
> "morning fog" is being compared?
>
> ----------------------------
> MARGARET E WINTERS
> Former Provost
> Professor Emerita - French and Linguistics
> Wayne State University
> Detroit, MI  48202
>
> mewinters at wayne.edu
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Mark
> Mandel <markamandel at GMAIL.COM>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2019 9:51 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Yet Further Antedating of "Smog"
>
> Am I the only one scratching my head over "pure white mist... always
> colored"?
>
> MAM
>
> On Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 7:13 AM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> > smog (OED 1905)
> >
> > 1880 _Santa Cruz Weekly Sentinel_ 3 July 3/5 (Newspapers.com)  The
> morning
> > fog ... is really not fog at all, but cloud of pure white mist, warmer
> and
> > much less wetting than a "Scotch Mist," not differing entirely from the
> > true British fog, facetiously spelled "smog" because always colored and
> > strongly impregnated with smoke, a mixture as unwholesome as it is
> > unpleasant.
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
>
>

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