William Safire, “On Language: Dirty Tricks” (New York Times, Feb. 3, 2008)
In 1828, The United States Telegraph, a newspaper supporting President Andrew Jackson, despite vilification in his re-election campaign for having married Rachel Robards before her divorce was complete, denounced its rival’s coverage with “The Intelligencer at its dirty tricks again!” (Cummins credits Ben Zimmer, an editor at the Oxford University Press, for this research; Zimmer is a source of mine on phrasedickery too.)
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