[Ads-l] antedating trans. "disappear,"

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> Heller's characters were being "disappeared" by army authorities. Hence (I
> believe) the currency of the term.

JL: Your Heller citation is wonderful, and if Heller heard it during
WWII it suggests that the following OED note may be faulty:
"Originally and frequently with reference to Latin America." Also,
your 1922 citation illuminates the evolution of the verb.

The first OED citation for transitive "disappear" is this:

[Begin OED citation]
1897 We progressively disappear the faces of the dodecahedron.
Chemical News 19 March 143
[End OED citation]

The citation below discusses a magic trick, and it contains the phrase
"the ball will be disappeared" which suggests to me that "disappear"
was being treated as a transitive verb in 1883. However, the context
contained a complaint that the phrase was written "with indifferent
correctness".

Date: January 1883
Periodical: The National Schoolmaster
Quote Page 5,
Publisher: John Heywood, Manchester, England
https://books.google.com/books?id=XrMEAAAAQAAJ&q=%22be+disappeared%22#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
Certain playthings are brought out with directions attached in three
different languages, German, French, and English. The German is
tolerable, but the French and English are written "with indifferent
correctness."

There is the interesting deception of the "box and ball" trick. The
happy English child is told to "show to the company the ball's
counterfeit close de box, and in opening the same the ball will be
disappeared."
[End excerpt]

Maybe Bill Mullins can find early examples in the literature about magic.

Garson

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