[Ads-l] tipping point

[Bill Mullins]

I have seen it recently asserted that the phrase "tipping point" has racist origins and should not be used, the theory being that it originated in the 1950s in reference to the point at which sufficient black families move into a formerly all-white neighborhood that a tipping point is reached and white flight occurs.

https://bestlifeonline.com/common-phrases-racist-origins/

The OED has [1957] and 1959 for "the point at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important, and often irreversible change" with cites supporting the above origins.

The figurative use of "tipping point" decades older, and this usage did not originate in the 1950s.

1905 Janesville Daily Gazette 9 Dec 4/2

Sheboygan Journal: It is an easy thing to get drunk with power, and Governor La Follette seems dangerously near the tipping point.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/73879293/?match=1&terms=%22tipping%20point%22


1923 Chattanooga News 1 Jun 13-B/4

I take great pleasure in congratulating Mr. Poindexter upon the production of a book which not only serves to reproduce for the present generation some picture of the Black Hills a the height of their plangencies, but which also is a capital mystery story in which the mystery is actually and indubitably preserved to the very tipping point of the climax.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/603410295/?match=1&terms=%22tipping%20point%22



1924 Chattanooga News 29 Nov  8-B/6

It is at this tipping point that a couple of yeggs break into the house and get away with the silver; with the plate and with an old painting in miniature which one of them found and added to the loot.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/603415828/?terms=%22tipping%20point%22




1934 Washington Herald 3 Nov 23/1

A record crowd for this afternoon's classic, a crowd that may push the 15,000 mark to the tipping point.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1043640623/?terms=%22tipping%20point%22&match=1



1938 Napa Valley Register 11/7

The addition of Lee Hunt, California Bear ace forward, to the lineup, evidently proved the tipping point in the balance of power.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/562581577/?match=1&terms=%22tipping%20point%22


1938 Hamilton Spectator 26 Mar 4/1

It has the power of stirring all kinds of racial loyalties in the audience and leaves one sitting complacently tolerant of both Yankee and Britisher after the balance has swung perilously near the tipping point on one side or the other through a sequence of events carefully planned to show the foibles and strong points of the viewpoints from either side of the big pond.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1006170444/?match=1&terms=%22tipping%20point%22


1940 Muskogee Daily Phoenix 16 Feb 13/7

Only Guard Sam Ed Sanders failed to bog down Tuesday night in the rout by Conners, the formerly well-balanced attack finding the tipping point in the Farmer defense.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/898515566/?terms=%22tipping%20point%22



1955 West Briton and Royal Cornwall Gazette 1 Dec 5/2

Probably the flu and the incident over the girl had been the "tipping point".

https://www.newspapers.com/image/812498577/?match=1&terms=%22tipping%20point%22

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