[Ads-l] Scandalous!

[Laurence Horn]

A bit more info at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic-tac-toe, also giving a date in the mid-1880s, and providing antecedents for a couple of millennia before then (without the name).  I remember learning the algorithm for never losing in the early 1950s.  Unlike the youngster JL, I had 19th century grandparents who didn’t know the game but a 19th century father who did. 

LH

> On Jul 12, 2023, at 6:08 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> OED cannot date the current game of tic-tac(k)-toe ("noughts and crosses")
> any earlier than 1960.
> 
> I personally learned the game, under the current name, from my
> nineteenth-century grandparents in the early 1950s.
> 
> OED also has an earlier children's game of the same name, from 1885.  I'll
> leave it to others to track down when the seemingly newer sense developed.
> 
> 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

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