Quotation competition

We are delighted to announce that the winner of our antedating competition is Dr Malcolm Jones of Sheffield University. He found an antedating of thuet, the hoopoe, from Jacques le Moyne de Morgues' La Clef des Champs, published in 1586, which predates the OED's only 1688 example by 102 years.

Although this is a French language source, it contains a woodcut captioned 'Latine VPVPA. Gallice HVPE. Germa VVIDHOPF. Anglice THVET.' This quotation is also important because the word is said to be a variant of tewhit, lapwing, although this and OED's 1688 quotation identify it as the hoopoe.

An honourable mention must also go to the author Jack Williamson. Alan Hughes, Chief Science Editor, writes:

'Eighteen years is not a long time as antedatings go, but when the term is genetic engineering and the antedating is from 1969 to 1951, then one might even call it spectacular: at that date even the double helix had yet to be discovered by Watson and Crick.

Jack Williamson has sent us a passage from the front of his novel Dragon's Island (1951), where one of the characters mentions 'the new science of genetic engineering'. Even odder, the character has the name, Kendrew, of a famous real-life molecular biologist.'

We would like to thank all who contributed, and to emphasize that our door is always open for antedatings.