[Ads-l] Fw: Antedating of "Goof Off"

[James Eric Lawson]

On 1/1/23 07:08, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
> (What follows may seem like I am annoyed at Jon Lighter, but
> that is not at all the case, I am just taking this
> opportunity to explain part of my attitude toward posting
> antedatings on this list.)
> 

To be clear, I'm taking this opportunity to chime in. Without
Fred's sterling example, I doubt I would've bothered to
explain, although it's now perhaps clear that I should. My
interest in antedatings is somewhat oblique; I find that
looking for them is a serendipity engine for me. It's like
having a destination when I go for a casual walk: as long as I
have a destination I have a pretext for taking a walk, but the
destination does not rule where I go or what I find along the
way.

My resources for finding antedatings are meager, because when
those resources are not effectively without cost (e.g.,
HathiTrust) they derive from a tiny entertainment budget
(e.g., newspapers.com...approximately 12 USD per month), and I
have no professional nor commercial interest in finding
antedatings, per se.

When I look, though, I make many happy discoveries that in
turn lead to other happy discoveries, and so on. The
antedatings I discover are rather incidental to my motives for
looking, which are perhaps best described as idle curiosity
that puts me in the way of examining works I otherwise would
not be inclined to examine.

Having found an antedating, I'm happy to share it here, with
the hopeful expectation that it might contribute in some tiny
way to other's much more skillful and focused explorations.
That said, it would be more ideal (I suspect), to share my
findings on something like a presently nonexistent "OED
antedatings" wiki.

It should be evident from the foregoing that I don't intend to
compete when I'm looking for antedatings. Any strong interest
in competitions of any sort for me is only in competitions
where I can prevail by my individual brute skill (e.g.,
chess), so to speak.  Antedating terms does not qualify.

> I should of course have checked Jon Lighter's masterwork The
> Historical Dictionary of American Slang.  I should check
> every antedating against the OED, HDAS, Green's Dictionary
> of Slang, Newspapers.com, NewspaperArchive, ProQuest,
> Readex, Gale, GenealogyBank, Chronicling America, Fulton
> History, British Newspaper Archive, Google Books, Hathi
> Trust, Internet Archive, JSTOR, Elephind, barrypopik.com
> (and, for older items, EEBO, ECCO, etc.).  But I hope that
> people on this list realize that I am interested in quantity
> of antedatings, and also have extremely demanding book
> projects, a demanding full-time job, and a family.
> Therefore, I often will be content to post an antedating
> without taking the time to attempt to find THE ultimate
> antedating by checking all the sources I just mentioned.  I
> do go through the whole list for terms that I view as
> especially important or especially interesting.
> 
> One of the great things about ADS-L is that I can succeed in
> bringing the ultimate thorough antedating to light by
> posting any, un-thorough antedating and by doing so motivate
> one of the great other antedaters on this list (some of whom
> are much more clever than myself) to do the whole hog of
> research.  Often that is my hope when I post my "quick and
> dirty" antedating.  I get a lot of satisfaction if my
> posting leads someone else to make a great discovery.  For
> example, I am very happy that my antedating of "science
> fiction" led Stephen Goranson to find the very important
> "ultimate" antedating of that term.
> 
> Fred Shapiro
> 
> 
> ________________________________ From: American Dialect
> Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Jonathan
> Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> Sent: Sunday, January 1,
> 2023 9:39 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> Subject: Re: Antedating of "Goof
> Off"
> 
> HDAS (a resource widely underutilized) has a 1941, from
> Marion Hargrove's best-selling _See Here, Private Hargrove!_
> (pub. July, 1942).
> 
> JL
> 
> On Sat, Dec 31, 2022 at 2:40 PM Shapiro, Fred
> <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
> 
>> goof off, v. (OED, 1.e., 1952)
>>
>> 1942 Yank 2 Dec. 11  He goofed off somehow.
>>
>> Fred Shapiro
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society -


-- 
James Eric Lawson

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