NP: You FASCIST! Interesting, maybe, if one is interested. In "fas cism", the word and its historic use.

[peterthooper at juno.com]

---------- Original Message ----------
From: Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subject: NP: You FASCIST! Interesting, maybe, if one is interested. In "fascism", the word and its historic use.
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2019 06:17:30 -0400

 From the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary, famous for finding the
earliest printed uses of 'all the words', showing
their etymological nuances and use and changes over time.

This dive resulted from a great old friend remarking that when
Merriam-Webster added fascism to its dictionary, in a 1940
revised edition,  that was pretty damn late, no?

Well, yes, and maybe a qualified Maybe.

First: another related truth. In Google's N--Gram chart-producing timeline
of the use of certain words found via a search
in ALL OF THE BOOKS THEY HAVE DIGITIZED, which is almost all of them, of
course, we learn this. 'fascism' the word
is invisible, does not exist, does not rise about the baseline of the
chart--flat-lined at the bottom---until around 1920, in which it starts a
slow
rise in its percentage appearance in books.

What the OED shows. The first citation of the word is from 1920 from a
Syracuse NY newspaper. The sentence says that
fascism will probably not last long. fascism is spelled without a
capitalization as w this sentence. It seems obvious that it is
a short sentence in a longer article about the European movement or
Party--italy, of course. The next cited similar uses
from newspapers and magazines all capitalize it: Fascism and obviously in
all those uses the party, movement is meant.
I might infer that that first use was anomalous, the writer did not
know/think it needed capped because not Big enough (as a movement)
Fascism. Fascism. etc........thru the thirties are all such citations.

*Until 1939* (!) when the word is used as a descriptive word. I cannot
remember and did not write down the example but it
meant a hard, uncompromising position, I think it is safe to say.

Then a flood of such extended use meanings including a great example, maybe
from the fifties, I thought I would remember but blissful sleep has
erased it--involving sex.......something like "the fascism of [certain] sex
desires"  but intricately said almost as if out of Pynchon ...but don't
hold me to this, look it up
when you can and get it right. And learn and laugh.
--
Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l

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