[Ads-l] OED's entry for shyster. (was: antedating of bootleg)

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

Yes, Roger Mohovich (pronounced muh-HO-vich) deserves

credit for the discovery of the earliest 1843 attestations of shyster

in the newspaper The Subterranean. He was the newspaper librarian

at the New York Historical Society and knew I was interested in the

origin of the term (but I was totally barking up the wrong tree). He

decided to check the Subterranean and found the valuable material

almost right away.  He notified me about it, and I then spent part of

the next two summers in New York City reading through the Subterranean

and checking other relevant materials.

     I shared the information on shyster in numerous issues of Comments

on Etymology (a series of working papers). More work was still to be

done, but Mohovich was the catalyst for all this, and due credit is given

to him up front in the preface of the l982 monograph.



Gerald Cohen

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Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2021 12:04 PM
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Subject: Re: OED's entry for shyster. (was: antedating of bootleg)

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Subject:      Re: OED's entry for shyster. (was: antedating of bootleg)
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I contributed the 1843 =93shyster=94 first use to the OED many years ago.  =
That citation was discovered, I recall, by Roger Mohovic of the New York Hi=
storical Society.

Fred Shapiro

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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Cohen,=
 Gerald Leonard <gcohen at MST.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2021 12:04 PM
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Subject: OED's entry for shyster. (was: antedating of bootleg)

Fred=92s very welcome mention of the first attestation of the

word shyster appearing in the NYC newspaper The Subterranean

brings to mind that the Oxford English Dictionary needs updating

on this term.  OED3 omits mention of The Subterranean,

even though that newspaper is critical for the etymology of shyster,

And while OED3 gives 1844 as the first attestation, there are 60

attestations of shyster from 1843 (compiled in Cohen 1982, pp. 25-32).

And as for OED saying that the etymology of shyster is obscure, this just

is not true.



Upon request I would be happy to provide assistance to the OED staff

and they would of course be free to accept it or not.  It goes without

saying that I am deeply appreciative of their work.



Gerald Cohen

Research specialty: Etymology

Missouri University of Science & Technology



P.S. I have authored three works on the term shyster (with

due credit given):

1. Origin of the Term Shyster. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang,

     1982. 124 pp.

2.  Origin of the Term Shyster: Supplementary Information.

     Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1984. 110 pp.

3. Shyster revisited: Compilation of treatments since my 1982,

     1984 monographs on the term. Comments on Etymology,

     vol. 42, #7, (April 2013), 54 pp.


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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Shapir=
o, Fred <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2021 7:18 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: antedating of bootleg

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Subject:      Re: antedating of bootleg
---------------------------------------------------------------------------=
----

That periodical in 1843 produced the earliest known occurrence of the word =
=3D
"shyster" (with a variant spelling).

Fred Shapiro


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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Peter =
=3D
Reitan <pjreitan at HOTMAIL.COM>
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2021 12:53 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: antedating of bootleg

The 1844 reference appears to be dated properly, but is misidentified by th=
=3D
e newspapers.com database.

The title page says, The Subterranean and Working Man's Advocate, an organ =
=3D
of the National Reform Organization, a temperance newspaper published in Ne=
=3D
w York City.
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