[Ads-l] Antedating of "Infrared"

Tue Sep 8 19:37:30 UTC 2020

I think I did a first reply to George Thompson only, saying that apparently
the nobility rank wasn't THAT high then. The Napoleonic general was listed
as a "Chevalier de l'Empire".

This gave me the idea though to try Google Books again. And I think I've
found our lieutenant-colonel E. de St.-Florent: In    I can only see
snippets, but one says ... "Le général Dupuy de Saint-Florent avait adopté
Antione-Télésphore Vignaud, décédé en 1874. L'un des trois fils de
celui-ci, Pierre-Edouard Vignaud-Dupuy de Saint-Florent, né en 1830, a été
nommé en 1890 lieutenant-colonel du génie ..." . In English: "General Dupuy
de Saint-Florent had adopted A-T V, who died in 1874. One of the three sons
of the latter, Pierre-Edmond V-D de S-F, born in 1830, was appointed
lieutenant-colonel in the army corps of engineers in 1890. ...."  It is
quite conceivable for a Pierre-Edmond to go by Edouard and fits with a
Lieut.-Col. E. de St.-Florent showing up in 1897 in the index of amateur
photography texts.

Chris

On Tue, Sep 8, 2020 at 7:45 AM George Thompson <george.thompson at nyu.edu>
wrote:

> I believe that the Almanach de Gotha did for European noble families what
> DeBrett's Peerage did for England.
>
> The NYPL record indicates that the last edition was issued in 1944;
>
> Almanach de Gotha : annuaire généalogique, diplomatique et statistique.
> <
> http://catalog.nypl.org/search~S1?/cAPC+%28Almanach+de+Gotha%29/capc+almanach+de+gotha/-3%2C-1%2C0%2CE/frameset&FF=capc+almanach+de+gotha&7%2C%2C327
> >
>
> Gotha : J. Perthes.  1944
>
>
> The NYPL also shows that the publication was revived in England a couple of
> decades ago.  (Note the editorial comment, though.)
>
> Almanach de Gotha : genealogy.
> <
> http://catalog.nypl.org/search~S1?/cAPC+%28Almanach+de+Gotha%29/capc+almanach+de+gotha/-3%2C-1%2C0%2CE/frameset&FF=capc+almanach+de+gotha&2%2C%2C327
> >
>    Standard ed.
> London : Almanach de Gotha,
>
> 1998
>
> v. 1, pts. 1 & 2 (Sovereign houses of Europe and South America); and: v. 2
> (Non-sovereign princely and ducal houses of Europe).
>
>  This is a controversial renewal of the original publication by a
> commercial enterprise "touting themselves as the true successors to the
> reputable almanach" (Wikipedia, accessed Jan. 22, 2008).
>
>
> Anyway, if anyone has access to this, or if an earlier edition has been
> digitized, and if Vignaud Dupuy de Saint-Florent was a sprig of nobility,
> by adoption or otherwise, then he might be found there.
>
>
> The family does not seem to be in the Annuaire de la noblesse de France.
> v.57 1901, (HathiTrust) but this is evidently limited to the highest of the
> high, and mere generals who have been nobilized for distinguished service
> must use the back door.
>
>
> GAT
>
> (a recovering reference librarian)
>
> On Mon, Sep 7, 2020 at 7:25 PM Chris Waigl <chris at lascribe.net> wrote:
>
> > Hi Fred,
> >
> > This is great - the electromagnetic spectrum is something I teach, and
> > having some historical texture to the topic helps.
> >
> > I poked at the titles you cited in Google Books a little more and found
> > quite a few mentions of M. de Saint-Florent in the tables of
> > contents, mostly for a color photography process he apparently invented.
> He
> > shows up as "E. de Saint-Florent" and "Lieut.-Col. de Saint-Florent". I
> > then looked in the catalogue of the French national library, but the only
> > name that is from approximately the right time is Alfred Vignaud Dupuy de
> > Saint-Florent, a medical doctor born in 1868 who wrote a treatise about I
> > think Huntington's disease or a similar neurological affliction ("La
> chorée
> > congénitale"). "Alfred" would be the (first) given name, and "Vignaud
> Dupuy
> > de Saint-Florent" the family name. Big-ass nobility. The family seems to
> > still exist. There's, going backwards, a Napoleonian general
> > called François Dupuy de Saint-Florent 1772-1838 who, according to this
> bio
> >
> >
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__nieuletalentoursenlimousin.fr_archive_militaires-2Dfrancois-2Ddupuy-2Dde-2Dst-2Dflorent_&d=DwIFaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=Kt3vaUhGH8UuqZmP8zxTHJVomOMN12sxDnGlvLh3FXU&s=vvJp38TKhbwhEKSX67M6dFsGqyikBXBl-waihesZOLY&e=
> > adopted a nephew called Antoine Télesphore Vignaud, and I guess it's his
> > descendents who go by the mouthful Vignaud Dupuy de Saint-Florent.
> >
> > Anyhoo, none of this tells us who E. was. This page
> >
> >
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.mesarchitecture.org_infrared.html&d=DwIFaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=Kt3vaUhGH8UuqZmP8zxTHJVomOMN12sxDnGlvLh3FXU&s=K_zKOvguWYY5BWAKvCRsRa9msiy7Bmmzm0qeGSF0u6s&e=
> > follows your footsteps,
> > probably, but must have some extra sources: "The phrase infra-rouge was
> > translated into English as “infrared” in 1874, in a translation of an
> > article by Vignaud Dupuy de Saint-Florent (1830-1907), an engineer within
> > the French army, who attained the rank of lieutenant colonel and who
> > pursued pictures as a pastime."
> >
> > Chris
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Sep 7, 2020 at 7:13 AM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > The OED's first use of the term "infrared" is dated 1881.  The letter
> > > below, which I am not sure where I got it from, traces it back to 1874.
> > >
> > > Fred Shapiro
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > In “Herschel and the Puzzle of Infrared” (May–June 2012), Jack White
> > > mentions that it is not known who coined the term “infrared.” This
> > mystery
> > > caught my attention. A Google Books search for “infra-red” finds two
> > > articles published in April 1874, both of which use the term in the
> > context
> > > of Edmond Becquerel’s treatise on light. In that work, La Lumière
> (1867,
> > > vol. 1, p. 141), the French infra-rouge is used. One of the articles
> > > appeared in The Photographic News for Amateur Photographers (18:176),
> and
> > > is by M. de St. Florent; the other is uncredited but appeared in The
> > > British Journal of Photography (21:160) and is attributed to de St.
> > Florent
> > > elsewhere in the volume. I have not been able to trace de St. Florent’s
> > > full name, but he published contemporaneously in Bulletin de la Société
> > > française de photographie. This author appears to be the coiner of
> > > “infra-red,” having translated it from French.
> > >
> > > There are two curious sidelights to this story: Becquerel was the
> father
> > > of Henri Becquerel, for whom the unit of radioactivity was named; and
> the
> > > term “ultraviolet” was coined by William Herschel’s son John Herschel
> in
> > > 1840.
> > >
> > > Gary Rosenberg
> > >
> > > Academy of Natural Sciences
> > >
> > > Drexel University
> > >
> > > Philadelphia, PA
> > >
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > The American Dialect Society -
> >
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=DwIFaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=Kt3vaUhGH8UuqZmP8zxTHJVomOMN12sxDnGlvLh3FXU&s=g1zuutvOfr60H7ZcsIoRVAxXLwHfcGJ1CiQAP48slLI&e=
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Chris Waigl . chris.waigl at gmail.com . chris at lascribe.net
> >
> >
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__eggcorns.lascribe.net&d=DwIFaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=Kt3vaUhGH8UuqZmP8zxTHJVomOMN12sxDnGlvLh3FXU&s=Kh4uhkNMeatO92UHezzxjcuw9Q1K4XJpyOvT5soVD1o&e=
> > .
> >
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__chryss.eu&d=DwIFaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=Kt3vaUhGH8UuqZmP8zxTHJVomOMN12sxDnGlvLh3FXU&s=3Jt9Bs197yxphutz1NsS7FK0eQSdIAxMcfHRdiFxR-A&e=
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society -
> >
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=DwIFaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=Kt3vaUhGH8UuqZmP8zxTHJVomOMN12sxDnGlvLh3FXU&s=g1zuutvOfr60H7ZcsIoRVAxXLwHfcGJ1CiQAP48slLI&e=
> >
>
>
> --
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998.
>
> But when aroused at the Trump of Doom / Ye shall start, bold kings, from
> your lowly tomb. . .
> L. H. Sigourney, "Burial of Mazeen", Poems.  Boston, 1827, p. 112
>
> The Trump of Doom -- also known as The Dunghill Toadstool.  (Here's a
> picture of his great-grandfather.)
>
> http://www.parliament.uk/worksofart/artwork/james-gillray/an-excrescence---a-fungus-alias-a-toadstool-upon-a-dunghill/3851
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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>

-- 
Chris Waigl . chris.waigl at gmail.com . chris at lascribe.net
http://eggcorns.lascribe.net . http://chryss.eu

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