[Ads-l] Dude, two chronological errors in OED3

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

HI all,

I see that the online OED still incorrectly
gives two pre-1883 dates for the term dude:
1877 (in a letter of painter Frederic Remington)
and 1879 (in a book, Fighting Indians, 2nd
edition, by Ami Mulford.

Barry Popik, Peter Reitan and I discuss this issue
(among others) in our 2021 co-authored book
Origin of the Term Dude. Reitan did extraordinary
work, showing that dude appears neither in the
first edition of Fighting Indians (cited by HDAS)
nor in an 1879 edition. That second edition
was incorrectly dated (at the back of the book
not on the title page).
Reitan pointed out that the publisher of the
second edition was not born until 1886.
See pp. 26-30 of our book, which I have
put online:
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/artlan_phil_facwork/209/

The supposed pre-1883 letter by Remington is also discussed
there, on pp. 21-25.
The real start of the term dude is Jan. 14, 1883 in a poem
published in the NYC newspaper, The World, and
discovered by Barry Popik.  My two co-authors have
done outstanding research. Btw, that 1883 dude poem by
Robert Sale Hill is also absent in the OED entry for dude.

Gerald Cohen





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