On the Cutting Edge of Word Use

It's been noted here and elsewhere that the first definition of cocktail appeared on May 15, 1806, in a newspaper called The Balance and Columbian Repository, published here in Hudson. The editor of The Balance was Harry Croswell, who also, using the pseudonym Robert Rusticoat, was the publisher of The Wasp.

Some of the earliest occurrences of the word capitalist were also in a Hudson newspaper--the Hudson Northern Whig--on March 7, 1815, and on September 17, 1816. 

Last night, a reader alerted me to another occasion when a Hudson newspaper was cutting-edge in its use of words. Once again, the newspaper was The Balance. Merriam-Webster reported a spike in people looking up the meaning of the word folderol after Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, on May 22, used the word in speaking of the fourth iteration of Theresa May's Brexit bill. (For Gossips readers not familiar with the word, it means something nonsensical or trivial.) Of the origin of the word, Merriam-Webster explains: "Folderol comes from fol-de-rol (or fal-de-ral), nonsense syllables commonly used as a refrain in songs. Although the non-musical sense was thought to have originated in 1820, recent findings show it in use earlier in the 19th century." One of those recent findings was the following, which appeared in The Balance, published here in Hudson, on January 8, 1805:

If I should contract debts in the States after I become a Spanish subject I make myself liable in Augustine, but as it is now you may whistle what tune you please for your own amusement, but let me beg you not to trouble me with any more of your folderol--for I will not answer you--Yours, &c. Obadiah Potter 

Thanks to Matt Lynch for bringing this to our attention
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