[Ads-l] panic button

[Jonathan Lighter]

OED: 1948

Fortuitous but fascinating:

1900 _Weiser [Ida.] Signal_ (Sept. 13) [unp.]: And the next year the gold
standard manipulator will press the panic button and the farmer's little
wad will be wiped out, and the trust magnate will erect a $2,000,000
mansion.

[In other words, 'trigger a financial panic.']

1900 Ibid. (Sept. 17) [unp.]: The banks had to take their finger off the
panic button as soon as they succeeded in carrying the election.

1902 _Shreveport Journal_ (Aug. 11) [unp.]: DELIRIUM TREMENS NEXT.
Prosperity has reached the hiccoughing stage with a lot of the speculators
who are rioting in Wall street.  Retribution will push the panic button
before very much longer .-- Chicago News.

JL
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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