[Ads-l] Antedating of "Orwellian"

[Stephen Goranson]

Quite right Jesse. I shoudda checked. 1949
Stephen
________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2021 7:54 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Antedating of "Orwellian"

That quote seems unlikely--the book 1984 wasn't published until June 1949, and I don't think there were any earlier excerpts using that title.

Jesse Sheidlower

On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 12:49:27PM +0000, Stephen Goranson wrote:
> 1946, Jan 28 Hagerstown Herald [MD, newspapers.com] 18/3
> ...concentration camps in Russia, the still Orwellian 1984 dictatorship.
>
> [Context of Fred's good find: the Soviet Union]
>
> SG
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2021 7:44 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Antedating of "Orwellian"
>
> 1946, July 27 New Statesman and Nation p. 69 [again, not necessarily 1984-ish]
>
> ...an Orwellian account by John Hampton of "underworld" literature.
> SG
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2021 7:39 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Antedating of "Orwellian"
>
> Fall 1949
> Peter Ustinov, Sight and Sound p. 15 [ProQuest--though not necessarily 1984-ish?]
> It is difficult to see a solution without being plunged into an Orwellian gloom.
>
> SG
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2021 7:23 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Antedating of "Orwellian"
>
> Orwellian (OED 1950)
>
> 1949 St. Albans (Vt.) Daily Messenger 4 Nov. 4/3 (Newspapers.com)  Almost all the Orwellian techniques of a future totalitarianism are found here.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2021 6:17 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Orwellian, 1950
>
> Jan. 14 NYTimes, "How 'Orwellian' Became an All-Purpose Insult" includes:
> According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term “Orwellian” started as a literary critic’s playful shorthand, when the writer Mary McCarthy used it in a 1950 essay to describe a fashion magazine that had no “point of view beyond its proclamation of itself.” McCarthy published in The Reporter, p. 33, dated Aug. 1, 1950 (though maybe available in July), "Up The Ladder From Charm to Vogue." "It [Flair] is a leap into the Orwellian future,  a magazine without content or point of view beyond its proclamation of itself, one hundred and twenty pages of sheer presentation, a journalistic mirage."
>
> Slight antedating. The Sphere [London}, April 8, 1950, "The Drive for 'New Australians': and how it is being acheived," p. 44:
> "It is by now widely agreed, without Britain right in it, Western Europe is likely to evolve as a freak, to be eventually either German-dominated or recast in the mould of Moscow Communism (something leading to Orwellian 1984).
>
> S. Goranson
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