Early Appearances in Writing
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known written usage of this phrase is in The rustick's alarm to the Rabbies, written by Samuel Fisher in 1660:
- "If in this Case there be no other (as the Proverb is) then Hobson's choice...which is, chuse whether you will have this or none."
It also appears in Joseph Addison's paper The Spectator (14 October 1712); and in Thomas Ward's 1688 poem "England's Reformation", not published until after Ward's death. Ward wrote:
- "Where to elect there is but one, / 'Tis Hobson's choice—take that, or none."
Read more about this topic: Hobson's Choice
Famous quotes containing the words early, appearances and/or writing:
“In an early spring
We see th’appearing buds, which to prove fruit
Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair
That frosts will bite them.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“What I often forget about students, especially undergraduates, is that surface appearances are misleading. Most of them are at base as conventional as Presbyterian deacons.”
—Muriel Beadle (b. 1915)
“In the learned journal, in the influential newspaper, I discern no form; only some irresponsible shadow; oftener some monied corporation, or some dangler, who hopes, in the mask and robes of his paragraph, to pass for somebody. But through every clause and part of speech of the right book I meet the eyes of the most determined men; his force and terror inundate every word: the commas and dashes are alive; so that the writing is athletic and nimble,—can go far and live long.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)