Earliest Recorded Usage

Famous quotes containing the words earliest, recorded and/or usage:

    Oh! snatch’d away in beauty’s bloom,
    On thee shall press no ponderous tomb;
    But on thy turf shall roses rear
    Their leaves, the earliest of the year;
    George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)

    The force of truth that a statement imparts, then, its prominence among the hordes of recorded observations that I may optionally apply to my own life, depends, in addition to the sense that it is argumentatively defensible, on the sense that someone like me, and someone I like, whose voice is audible and who is at least notionally in the same room with me, does or can possibly hold it to be compellingly true.
    Nicholson Baker (b. 1957)

    ...Often the accurate answer to a usage question begins, “It depends.” And what it depends on most often is where you are, who you are, who your listeners or readers are, and what your purpose in speaking or writing is.
    Kenneth G. Wilson (b. 1923)