[Ads-l] Antedating of "Postmodern"

[Shapiro, Fred]

postmodern (OED 1916)

1866 Walter Bagehot in Spectator 22 Sept. 1052/1 (Google Books)  All our great protective works against the sea, all our great accumulative works at the great ports, are modern in the strictest sense, post-modern, as geologists would say, part of the "drift" of this age.

1914 Stanley Victor Makower & Basil Blackwell A Book of English Essays (1600-1900) 539 (Google Books)  The latest period of time recognized by geologists is the Recent or Human Period: as this extends back possibly for 100,000 years, and the whole of it is called Modern, some other term such as post-modern is necessary to mark off the historical from the prehistoric ages.

Fred Shapiro



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