Date:    Mon, 11 May 1998 06:14:18 EDT
<br>From:    Bapopik <Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM>
<br>Subject: Lobby
<br>
<br>     Evan Morris ("The Word Detective"/son of MORRIS DICTIONARY OF WORD AND
<br>PHRASE ORIGINS authors) will have the word "lobby" in the next issue of his
<br>column.  As a paying customer of the free column, I get an advanced copy.
<br>This may be too late, but I've done work on the "lobby."
<br>     As I've posted here before, my sister was told by a tour guide on a
<br>Washington, D.C. trip that "lobby" comes from a hotel that President Lincoln
<br>stayed at.  Evan Morris received the same false etymology, but the President
<br>has been changed to President Grant.
<br>     The Worldcat title search wasn't every helpful, but turned up these two:
<br>
<br>1704--A STEP TO THE LOBBY.  This book (printed in London) has a "satire,
<br>political" subject.  I haven't read it; it seems 100 years removed from
<br>"lobby" as we know it.
<br>1787--THE LOBBY LOUNGER by Charles Stuart.  This London play also probably has
<br>nothing to do with our 19th-century political usage, but it antedates OED's
<br>1803 "lobby-lounger" citation.
<br>
<br>     NILES' REGISTER is on CD-ROM indexed from 1811-1849.  NILES' covered
<br>national political news, so I expected it to have "lobby."  Indeed, it had
<br>many good  citations:
<br>
<br>February 4, 1832, pp. 409-410.
<br>     "Lobby members" is used.  These would later be called "lobbyists."  OED's
<br>first citation for "lobby member" is 1848.  "Lobby" is also used here:  "And
<br>the delegates, on either side, have just about the same right to hold and
<br>express opinions, in the 'lobby' or elsewhere, (except on the floor of the
<br>senate), as the venerable senator himself."  It appears that "lobby" can be
<br>taken literally.
<br>
<br>July 21, 1832, pp. 381-2.
<br>     The title for the story is "LOBBY MEMBERS."
<br>
<br>July 28, 1832, pg. 388, col. 1.
<br>    The one-paragraph story is titled "LOBBY MEMBERS."
<br>
<br>August 4, 1838, pg. 368, col. 2.
<br>    The one-paragraph story is titled "_Lobby services_."
<br>
<br>     I can't at the moment find the copy of my first citation, which would be
<br>volume 28, pg. 415.  This pushes "lobby" to the 1820s and is the second-oldest
<br>citation.  OED's 1808 citation was taken from 1852 and needs to be re-checked
<br>in full.
<br>