Template:Did you know nominations/Out of left field

Out of left field

 * ... that the phrase out of left field was first used in its idiomatic sense by the American music industry?
 * Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Naalvar

Created/expanded by Binksternet (talk). Self nom at 22:39, 9 May 2012 (UTC)




 * Symbol possible vote.svg - Article meets date and length requirements, and is sourced throughout. The hook is sourced, but the full online source appears to behind a paywall. Presuming that the phrase was in use by Tin Pan Alley, is it known that this was the first usage? Also, later sources contradict this, stating that the origin is disputed. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  10:01, 11 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Later sources do not actually contradict Shaw; rather, they just do not know about Shaw. The 1949 source is a scholarly journal article written by Arnold Shaw (author), a music executive and music history author. Shaw says that the Tin Pan Alley use is the first use he knows about. He says that three areas of the music industry are responsible for the majority of the "slanguage", and "The pluggers are responsible for the argot of the business. They contribute such colorful words and expressions as: ...payola, smallee, smash, rocking-chair hit, Mickey Mouse band, the hot, sheet shot, curve, out of left field. In quantitative terms, plugger slang and terminology represent the largest and least known group of words in the list that follows." None of the later sources mentions Shaw at all, even though he is widely cited in books and other scholarly papers for this specific article. It is as if the later lexicographers never heard of Shaw, the Music Library Association and their journal Notes—I have no explanation for it. It's in print for cryin' out loud, from 1949. Safire and others demonstrate very clearly how much in the dark they are; they determined the first use to be some time in the 1950s (Chapman says "by 1953" and Safire says "late 1950s") but Billboard magazine has it in print a couple of times during the 1940s (1943, 1947, 1948), while Shaw refers to the phrase used in Variety and other music trade rags. A humor book casually uses the phrase in 1945. The actor Jackie Coogan uses it in 1951 to describe his getting a certain movie role. Unfortunately, the 1980s guys did not have searchable online digitized scans of books, newspapers and journals to help them locate semi-obscure sources, and I have to conclude that limited resources stopped them from poring through back issues of Billboard or Variety. Basically, Shaw, writing the early scholarly source, must be our definitive version, the best authority with the closest connection to the origin, and I wrote the article with that source foremost. Everything else, all the other explanations, are later conjecture based on incomplete research. Even the so-called dispute is really disputed conjecture which must pale in the presence of the strongly stated Notes article by Shaw. Binksternet (talk) 11:18, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Two points; first, no matter what the source, the hook is an absolute, "was first used". Wouldn't it be more accurate to say "first known use"? Second, the structure of the article implies that we don't believe Shaw; we offer Shaw's explanation, and then there is a paragraph of "later" scholars saying completely different things. I understand that he was right and later scholars didn't know of his work because you've said that here, but I didn't get that from reading the article. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  19:29, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
 * ALT1: ... that the first known use of the phrase out of left field in its idiomatic sense was by the American music industry? Binksternet (talk) 01:15, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
 * This alternate version covers your first concern. I don't know exactly what to do about the second concern because nobody has commented on Shaw's version of the term, so I cannot say in Wikipedia's voice that Shaw is the best source. Perhaps I can give some of Shaw's credentials. Or I can add how his article was cited by others. Binksternet (talk) 01:15, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I won't hold it up for this, but what about adding a sentence to the beginning of the "Later" section? Something like "Though Shaw identified the origin as Tin Pan Alley, later scholars seemed unaware of this conclusion" or something. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  02:43, 13 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Symbol confirmed.svg - ALT1 addresses main concern I had with the main hook. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  02:43, 13 May 2012 (UTC)