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Post by timniesen on Feb 6, 2012 12:02:45 GMT -5
Skr, If you have found the term filibuster used before 1849 (the citation by a Cuban-American historian of the Lopez expeditions from the New York Commercial Advertiser), you have predated the existing first usage. I use the term common usage as evidenced by its frequent use in the newspaper press, documented by a historical linguistical study. I supplemented my study of the New York Tribune and New York Evening Post (none found there before the fall of 1851) by a study of the New Orleans Crescent and New Orleans Daily Delta. In none of these newpapers did I find a usage of the term filibuster before 1850. If you have found a prior usage of the term, I suggest that you report that usage to the OED, which will cite you in their new and constantly changing text in regard to first usage. Tim
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Post by timniesen on Feb 6, 2012 18:47:54 GMT -5
I think that the Cuban-American historian who cites the 1849 usage is Rodrigo Lazo, who wrote the book Writing To Cuba..., published by University of North Carloina Press, 2005. I have not seen the book; however, he wrote about this discovery in an online essay prior to its publication. Tim
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Post by sloanrodgers on Feb 6, 2012 20:24:59 GMT -5
If you have found a prior usage of the term, I suggest that you report that usage to the OED, which will cite you in their new and constantly changing text in regard to first usage. Tim Filibuster was clearly in use before 1849, although I don't know how popular it was in the United states. The Dec. 10, 1846 Times-Picayune has an article, where U.S.N. Commodore Mathew Perry (not a friend) is called a filibuster for his bombardment of Tabasco, Mexico. Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not interested in taking credit for tracking down the origin or earliest reference to the word filibuster as it is so easily researched and probably been done before by others.
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Post by timniesen on Feb 7, 2012 10:35:23 GMT -5
Skr, As a test, I searched the digitized newspapers site at the Library of Congress for filibuster. There were no recorded examples before 1851, when my search revealed 13 results, most of which came from the Fall of that year. Likewise, there were no examples produced by a search for either the Spanish filibustero or the French flibustier. Therefore, if you have found an example of the term filibuster, even if it is used in an attributive sense (like a pirate), in 1846 with that exact spelling it is significant discovery. Tim
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Post by sloanrodgers on Feb 7, 2012 17:25:45 GMT -5
Skr, As a test, I searched the digitized newspapers site at the Library of Congress for filibuster. There were no recorded examples before 1851, when my search revealed 13 results, most of which came from the Fall of that year. Likewise, there were no examples produced by a search for either the Spanish filibustero or the French flibustier. Therefore, if you have found an example of the term filibuster, even if it is used in an attributive sense (like a pirate), in 1846 with that exact spelling it is significant discovery. Tim Well, the Library of Congress newspaper collection is good for some papers, but not for others. It's not great for detailed research on a specific name or subject in a certain year or state. For that you should shop around the various pay and free newspaper websites. Archive.com is a good one. It's not a question of if I found the 1846 spelling of filibuster. It's there in the New Orleans Picayune and easy to locate. I'm sure it also appears elsewhere in the 40s as flybuster, but I'm not interested in conducting an in depth search or taking credit for finding a word origin that was never really lost.
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Post by timniesen on Feb 7, 2012 17:51:15 GMT -5
Skr, Well, I agree that there are other digitized newspaper websites that I have not searched. Nonetheless, I think my main point is still valid. The use of the Americanism filibuster was quite uncommon before 1851. Tim
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Post by sloanrodgers on Feb 7, 2012 19:08:37 GMT -5
Perhaps in newspapers, but maybe not in other written material and especially the speech of the time. I'm sure wordophiles could name hundreds of common words that didn't regularly appear in 19th Century newspapers.
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Post by timniesen on Feb 8, 2012 11:57:35 GMT -5
Skr, I am not sure if you are correct or not, for I only have filibuster studies of the American press. Your point here is well taken, but my study is really concentrated on the issue of its transformation after its entrance in American usuage. In the New Orleans newspaper article that you refer to which has an example of an early use of filibuster (filibustero does not count), are the Americans calling themselves filibusters? During the Texan Revolution, Gen. Santa Anna's proclamations referred to American settlers and American reinforcements as filibusteroes, but certainly this does not count as an Americanism. One mark of a foreign word's transition into an Americanism is that it loses its pejorative status in usage. For example, the supporters of the Lopez Expeditions accepted the pejorative Spanish word and the word filibuster lost its negative status in American usage in New Orleans. The Lopez filibusters and their supporters themselves soon accepted and gloried the term, and subsequent American historians now use filibuster in a non-pejorative sense. Tim
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Post by sloanrodgers on Feb 8, 2012 17:01:34 GMT -5
I'm not either, that's why I said "perhaps" and "maybe." All I know is that filibuster was printed in newspapers in the mid 1840s and thus probably uttered by Americans for years before.
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Post by timniesen on Feb 8, 2012 19:14:39 GMT -5
Skr, Thanks for your imput and retorts. I have learned things that I did not know about the word filibuster. You have convinced me that I have to subscribe to various digitized newspaper websites. Although I want to wait until I find out what the university libraries that I intend to soon join have subscribed to before I make such choices. Tim
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Post by sloanrodgers on Feb 9, 2012 17:01:39 GMT -5
Likewise.
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Post by stuart on Mar 25, 2012 11:41:07 GMT -5
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Post by timniesen on Mar 26, 2012 11:25:42 GMT -5
Stuart, I am referring to filibuster as an Americanism, and not its usage in Spanish, Dutch, French. Its transformation before 1850 is beyond both my evidence and language skills. It is certainly not used commonly in American usage before 1850 in New Orleans and 1851 in New York City. My evidence is clear. Skr should be commended for discovering the 1846 example. A 1849 example in the New York Commercial Advertiser has also been cited, in the sense of a filibuster; that is, an American, Cuban, or French adventurer breaking the American neutrality law of 1818 by invading another nation in time of peace. Tim
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Post by timniesen on Oct 5, 2013 21:02:11 GMT -5
The phrase "Buffalo Hunt" was used from the early 1840 into the 1850s to describe filibuster expeditions. This phrase originated during one of the frequent Texan filibuster expeditions into New Mexico when a trader meet one of these numerous expeditions on the way there. He asked one of the Texan filibusters what they were doing. One of the filibusters answered, "We are on a "buffalo hunt." The best place to see this relatively rare Americanism is the published Polk diary, when Polk refers to the American mercenary expedition into the Yucatan, which had declared its independence of Mexico, and its ruling white elite was attempting to suppress an Indian revolt in the wake of the Mexican-American War. The term Buffalo Hunt was also used in the late 1840s and early 1850s to describe a political seceder from a party. This was caused by the revolutionary political coalition forming the Free Soil Convention of 1848. Although it was a relatively rare word meaning, and limited to the early 1850s, filibuster also picked up this meaning because of its association with the filibuster meaning of Buffalo Hunt. If A equal B and B equal C, then A equal C. Tim
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Post by timniesen on Jan 20, 2016 17:15:34 GMT -5
The political usage of filibuster has been distorted by the specious reference to a usage by Democratic Congressman Brown in regard to a political "filibustering" by Democratic Congressman Venable on January 3, 1853. Both the OED and the other standard book on American Americanism cite this source in the Congressional Globe. (They also misdate the speech; it is not January 4, but rather January 3.) Yet, if one goes and closely examines this Congressional debate on the threat of Spain to liberate its African slaves in Cuba in the case of an successful Cuban filibuster on that island, there is no political filibuster in that debate. No calling for yeas or nays. No calling for roll calls. No long winded speeches. No political delay of any sort. This meaning of filibuster has escaped heretofore mention. I have tracked it in the New York Times and New York Tribune. Tim
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