[Ads-l] Antedating of "Ballpark" (Adjective)

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Congratulations to  Ken Liss. Here is a slightly earlier citation for
"ballpark figure".

Date: November 1956
Periodical: Control Engineering
Volume 3, Issue 11
Section: Feedback
Title: When transistors overload
Quote Page 12
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, New York
Database: Internet Archive

[Begin excerpt]
Accurate calculation of the signal frequency at which the transistor
will overload is difficult. Because rigorous methods seem
unreasonable, we asked Aronson to develop some rules-of-thumb which
would give the applier of power transistors some "ballpark" figure for
frequency limits.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Sun, Mar 23, 2025 at 8:10 AM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> ballpark, adj. (OED 1960)
>
> “Pentagon language continues to produce new bafflers. One of them is ‘a ballpark figure,’ meaning a very rough estimate which doesn’t do much more than indicate that a given program is going to cost someone an awful lot of money.” The Des Moines Register, June 24, 1957, p16
>
> NOTE: This antedating was found by Ken Liss.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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