[Ads-l] Antedating of "Welfare Queen"

[Shapiro, Fred]

I think Jesse is alluding to the remarkable fact that in 1919 the greatest racehorse of all time was upset by a horse named Upset.  The OED, surprisingly, does not include the verb sense of "upset," meaning "defeat a competitor unexpectedly."

Fred Shapiro
(who not only introduced "Shapiro's Law" about horse names, but actually owns a horse who definitely is not a racehorse but who is descended from Man O' War)

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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, January 1, 2025 4:41 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Antedating of "Welfare Queen"

A massive upset in the race for earliest example of _welfare queen_!

Jesse Sheidlower

On Wed, Jan 01, 2025 at 08:54:27PM +0000, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
> Over the years there has been some mention on this list of "Shapiro's Law," which claims that there are a surprising number of words and phrases that originate as the name of a racehorse.  Here is another example: The OED's earliest citation for the racist trope "welfare queen" is dated 1974, relating to a woman named Linda Taylor.  Wikipedia regards the Taylor story as the origin of the term.
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> A Newspapers.com search pulls up the Omaha World-Herald, 7 June 1973, page 38, column 2, where the horse-race listings include a horse named Welfare Queen.  This seems like a very odd name to give to a horse, but there it is.
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> Fred Shapiro
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