On 20/07/2013 3:29 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> Well, I'll cop to my source being John Lloyd for that, and it wouldn't be
> the first time that I'd seen/heard something in one of his books that I
> knew wasn't quite correct.
>

True. I would think that there is a team of researchers being used for QI.

> OED cites an example from 1888 as its earliest citation, but OED doesn't
> always have the earliest, since the quotations are just examples. But it
> does confirm something I thought was the case, which is that it wasn't
> common to the US, but more common to other colonies, notably Australia,
> New Zeland, and South Africa. At least as an "English Immigrant".
>

Our "received wisdom" is that it was Poms for Brits in the antipodes.
But you never can tell.

> In the US, the term comes along later (or at least the earliest quote
> citing it is later, 1918), referring to an English or British sailor.
> That actually does match up with the information in the Second Book of
> General Ignorance (the quotation uses "lime-juicer" to refer to the ship,
> and "limeys" to refer to the sailors).
>

Jack Tars, this side of the pond. Me lad!
Oo Arr!

BTW Did you know that Avast! Me hearties. Actually means "Stop what 
you're doing"?

> But Mr. Fry doesn't do the research, generally, for QI.  I don't know
> that Lloyd does that much of it any more, either.;)

Mr. Fry says more than his prayers, when he wants to impress. IMO.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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