[Ads-l] Antedating of "Enslaved Person"

[Shapiro, Fred]

Quite right, Jesse.  I realized that the OED's 2021 citation was not an attempt by them to trace the origins of the phrase, it was only an illutrative quotation for "enslaved."  I just thought that the 1794 citation would be of interest to people looking into the origins of the collocation.  As Jesse notes, the real importance of the collocation now is the political / psychological effort to emphasize that enslaved people were people who should not be defined by their terrible persecution..

Fred Shapiro

________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, September 3, 2025 10:38 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Antedating of "Enslaved Person"

This is a bit misleading--OED doesn't separate _enslaved person_ into a separate lemma; the 2021 is just the one quote under _enslaved_ adj. (otherwise dating to 1618) that happens to show that collocation.

I do agree that _enslaved person_ probably should be a separate entry, though, not least so that you could hang a note on it explaining that it's the recently favored term for _slave_.

Jesse Sheidlower

On Wed, Sep 03, 2025 at 02:26:18PM +0000, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
> enslaved person (OED 2021)
>
> 1794 Thomas Beattie Elements of Moral Science vol. 2, p. 79 (Eighteenth Century Collections Online)
>
> Slavery may extend its baleful influence to the innocent children of the enslaved person, and even to their descendants.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.americandialect.org%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C251bfcf1914e44ab723508ddeaf77cde%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638925070885112233%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=fWJEv5pzmY%2Bjhr5JvvaqbSWBylDCXFwGvmQM0sG7Mh4%3D&reserved=0<http://www.americandialect.org/>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.americandialect.org%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C251bfcf1914e44ab723508ddeaf77cde%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638925070885143490%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=AIqqdWk1fi7%2Bvk1BwmyWJts4zjzbav0TDPj4p1go%2Fq4%3D&reserved=0<http://www.americandialect.org/>

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