[Ads-l] "hauling the wool over their eyes, " -- 5-year antedating

Sat Dec 3 01:56:50 UTC 2022

Excellent topic and citation, GAT.
Here is an instance of “pull the wool over the peoples eyes” in 1828.
(The text used "peoples" instead of "people's".)

Date: September 12, 1828
Newspaper: Delaware Journal
Newspaper Location: Wilmington, Delaware
Article: Dialogue: Scene—A Senator's Office
Quote Page 3, Column 1
Database: Newspapers.com
https://www.newspapers.com/image/616669874/

[Begin excerpt]
Attor Gen.—I hope we shall be able to prevail upon my dear friend Mr
M.L. to go down, Sir, I have no doubt of extensive benefit from his
visit—he can pull the wool over the peoples eyes better than any man I
know.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Fri, Dec 2, 2022 at 7:00 PM George Thompson <george.thompson at nyu.edu> wrote:
>
>             It appeared that thieves . . . have a set of technicalities by
> which they can carry on their dialogues in the most public assemblages with
> comparative security, such as "sand lay," "coal lay," "hauling the wool
> over their eyes," &c. which mean that one should divert the attention of
> the store-keeper or clerk, by the purchase of sand or coal, whilst the
> other pillages the drawer, and afterwards "pulling the wool over his eyes,"
> by returning and enquiring the time, or on some other petty excuse which
> may tend to lull suspicion.
>             NY Times, September 5, 1834, p. 2, cols. 3-4
>
>
> OED:
> Phrases and proverbial sayings.  (a) against the wool: contrary to the
> direction in which wool naturally lies, the wrong way.  (b) to draw (pull,
> †spread) the wool over (a person's) eyes: to make blind to facts, to
> hoodwink, to deceive. Originally U.S.   ***
> (b)
> 1839    Jamestown (N.Y.) Jrnl. 24 Apr. 1/6   That lawyer has been trying to
> spread the wool over your eyes.
> 1842    Spirit of Times (Philadelphia) 29 Sept.   Look sharp, or they'll
> pull wool over your eyes.
> 1855    F. M. Whitcher Widow Bedott Papers (1883) xv. 55   He ain't so big
> a fool as to have the wool drawd over his eyes in that way.
> *a*1859   in J. R. Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (ed. 2) 517   They think
> they find a prize, If they can only pull their wool o'er other people's
> eyes.
> 1884    W. D. Howells Rise Silas Lapham vii   I don't propose he shall pull
> the wool over my eyes.
>
>
> GAT
>
> --
> 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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org