Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 00:37:20 -0500

From: Gregory {Greg} Downing downingg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IS2.NYU.EDU

Subject: Re: All America (1889)



At 12:12 AM 1/7/98 EST, you wrote:

"All America" is an Americanism.

It's not slang, so it's not in the HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN

SLANG.

It's not regional (it's All American), so it's not in the DICTIONARY OF

AMERICAN REGIONAL ENGLISH.

It wasn't in the DICTIONARY OF AMERICANISMS and it wasn't in the OXFORD

ENGLISH DICTIONARY that I could see.

Drove me nuts!!

At the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Indiana, Nancy Eide

(Nancy.Eide[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CollegeFootball.org) responded that "All America" was first used

in "This Week's Sport" (whatever that is) in 1889. There must have been other

lists published soon after this--leading to the phrase "everybody's All

American" that I found ten years later and that was the title of a Frank

Deford novel and film.





See also, in OED2, all, section E (combs., far down in the entry), meaning

6b, where the first cite, dated Nov. 1888, is from _Outing_ (a periodical, I

imagine). All-American appears thirteen times times in OED2, but the early

cites are in the passage just indicated.



Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nyu.edu or downingg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]is2.nyu.edu