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

[Stephen Goranson]

Possibly a bit earlier, not confirmed, but the vol. 63 does match 1955 July-Sept.

[page 41 in two snippets]


... ball - park number for the result which is to be obtained from a given analysis and then to search frantically for some theory which will zero in on the de- sired trend and fit standard drafting templates . In this short - hair branch ...

https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=%22ball+park+number%22&tbs=,cdr:1,cd_min:Jan+1_2+1950,cd_max:Dec+31_2+1955&num=10

Stephen

________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2025 10:01 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Antedating of "Ballpark" (Adjective)

And a few months earlier still (in the form of a Q-and-A; the initial "?" is in the original text):

1956 _Petroleum Processing_ May 65/2
? On a barrel-for-barrel basis, how much additional fresh gas oil could be charged to a unit operating at coke burning capacity by the withdrawal of slurry?
Clarke: A ball-park figure would seem to be about 3 bbl per bbl. Beyond that, however, I think we might state a range of from two to eight or so.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://archive.org/details/sim_petroleum-processing_1956-05_11_5/page/n74/mode/1up__;!!OToaGQ!qHX6dgIkytvy4L52rzSeiO6lQ3qRLIj1pcWGeZMUKzoVpYMinYn03GMGW7KDTvwXiAArb-wHnkAX4w$

Jesse Sheidlower


On Sun, Mar 23, 2025 at 09:48:46AM -0400, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
> 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
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
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