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

[Bill Mullins]

A week ago, Garson said "Maybe Bill Mullins can find early examples in the literature about magic."  I've finally gotten a chance to look in the AskAlexander database of conjuring literature ( https://conjuringarts.org/askalexander/ ), and was not able to antedate his 1883 cite.  For one thing, there really wasn't much of a stand-alone conjuring literature to search until 1900 or so.  Most of the books on magic before then were targeted to the general public, and are available in Hathitrust, Google books, archive.org, etc.  The periodical Mahatma started in 1895 and was targeted at magicians, and that is as good a point as any to note as the beginning of conjuring literature separate from generally available works.

In addition, while "disappear" (trans.) is used by magicians, the standard term for this action (and by far, more commonly used) is "vanish".  A magician will vanish a ball from under a cup or a coin from his hand far more often than he will disappear one.

Magician Sid Fleischman wrote:
"Probably the oddest liberties the magician takes with language are in
the realm of grammar. Without even a hocus-pocus he has changed a
number of nouns into verbs. He may vest a handkerchief, sleeve a coin,
pocket a gimmick, or tongue a cigarette. Generally he will use secret as a
verb only in the past tense, i.e., the coin was secreted ['sikratId] in his
trouser cuff. The intransitive verbs disappear and vanish have been turned
into transitive verbs. Thus, the magician may speak of disappearing or
vanishing a card. The adverb how is often used as a noun. The how of a
trick, of course, refers to its method. "

A. S. Fleischman, "Words in Modern Magic."  American Speech Vol. 24, No. 1 (Feb., 1949), pp. 38-42




1905 Sphinx v3n11 Jan 139/2

You now apparently try to pick the coin out of the elbow you disappeared it into, and while doing so, and drawing everybody's attention to that elbow, you unobserved get the coin from your ear into the fingers of your right hand.


W. Goldston, The Magician Annual 1907-1908 65/1

In disappearing himself, the performer holds the sheet up in front of him, and the invisible man, who is behind him, relieves him of it. At a sign the assistant either drops the sheet, or "disappears" it through the back.

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