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

Wed Jan 11 20:28:48 UTC 2023

I never think of antedating as a competitive sport. Well, hardly ever.
If one is posted here (and interests me), and I suspect an earlier one
can be found, I often look for it.

Sometimes they are serendipitous, like the 1942 and 1918 "jarheads." I
wouldn't have looked if I hadn't stumbled upon the faux etymology from
"jar lamp."

JL

On Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 3:08 PM James Eric Lawson <jel at nventure.com> wrote:
>
> 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

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

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