[Ads-l] O'Grady says antedating; slap-neck

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

The British Newspaper Archive is probably one of the best databases to
search for evidence of the "O'Grady says" exercise. I only performed a
shallow search because scanning false positives provides little
entertainment. I searched for "O'Grady's drill" and found a plausible
match in August 1917. "O'Grady's drill" in this citation was a
competitive game for wounded members of the military.

Also, there is a solid match for "O’Grady orders" in January 1918.
Double check for OCR errors and metadata errors.

Date: August 30, 1917
Newspaper: West Sussex Gazette
Newspaper Location: County of Sussex, England
Article: CROWBOROUGH
Quote Page 3, Column 6
Database: British Newspaper Archive

[Begin excerpt]
Great interest centred on the garden sports for the wounded at
Harecombe Manor Auxiliary Hospital, kindly arranged by Lady Gatacre.
Winners of handsome prizes were: Boot race, 1, Private Doyle; potato
guessing competition, 1, Corporal Ward; round the stake, 1, Private
Thomas; potato race. 1, Private Thomas; apple eating competition, 1,
Private Longley; egg and spoon race, 1, Private Vincent; O'Grady's
drill, 1, Private Middleton; three-legged race, 1, Private Herr;
. . .
[End excerpt]

Date: January 9, 1918
Newspaper: The Bystander
Newspaper Location: London, England
Article: “O’Grady”
Quote Page 76 (12), Column 2
Database: British Newspaper Archive

[Begin excerpt]
“O’Grady is a-standin’ by my side—you can’t see him, but ’e’s
there—and every time O’Grady orders you to do anythin’ you do it; if
’e doesn’t tell you to do it, yer don't do it, and every time you do
anythin’ O’Grady ’asn’t ordered, you just ’ave a little run to the
’edge and back.”
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Wed, Sep 4, 2019 at 7:29 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> And another, also ref. to 1918:
>
> 1923 Leonard Nason in _Adventure_ (Feb. 10) 52: After the heart-breaking
> labor of the training camp, the standing to heel, the spit and polish,
> O'Grady and the Limey shuffle, a life of ease was doubly welcome. ... "I'm
> tellin' you they'll be havin' us playin' O'Grady around these fields yet."
>
> An AEF veteran, Nason was a prolific writer of World War fiction.
>
> The "Limey shuffle" may refer to a British form of drill, but I'm only
> guessing.
>
> JL
>
>
> JL
>
> On Sat, Sep 22, 2007 at 2:33 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> > This is the British equivalent of Simon Says (1856).  OED has 1930.
> >
> > 1921 Ardern Beaman _The Squadroon_ (London: John Lane) 142 [ref. to 1918]:
> > The snow lay too deep for football, so we played instead "O'Grady says,"
> > "Slap-neck," "Follow-my-Leader," and anything else we could think of.
> >
> > Kingley Amis published a memorable poem inspired by "O'Grady Says" in 1962.
> >
> > "Slap-neck" is unrecorded.
> >
> > JL
> >
> > ------------------------------
> > Boardwalk for $500? In 2007? Ha!
> > Play Monopoly Here and Now
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> >
> >
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
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