Weird! Neat! I think generally that transition is poorly sourced? Maybe try Google ngrams
a reasonable estimate is that the popularization of the word “sibling” happened over the second half of the 20th century. before that the word had been active in technical areas, but didn’t seem to pick up steam in other places until the ‘60s. some interesting timestamps sourced from old newspapers:
- 1943, new york: Henry Hastings Curran (1877–1966, then NYC’s chief magistrate) expressed dismay at the increasing use of the word among probation officers, with a bemusing amount of outrage: “how would you like to be called a scarab? or a scamp? or a coystrel or a curmudgeon? or a tatterdemalion? or a gremlin? or a sibling? how would you like that?” “to me it has a very doubtful sound, dubious, dismal, desparate.” (1 Aug 1943, New York Daily News)
- 1944, london: at the pensions tribunal at the law courts, Sir Owen Bearsley (could be this Owen Bearsley, unsure) was confused by a psychiatrist’s use of the word in his report. Bearsley’s colleague had to look it up in a medical dictionary.
- 1953, london: one Alan Dick advocated the use of the word in place of the cumbersome “brother and sister”: “here’s another ugly one—brother-or-sister. you want to ask somebody if he-or-she is an only child or if he-or-she has any brothers or sisters, and it all has to come out at once—bruthussasistus. this is another place for a single word meaning either. the psychologists… invented a word of their own. sibling. what about taking it over for everyday use?” (24 Feb 1953, Daily Herald)
- 1963, US: William Morris (1913–1994, lexicographer, columnist) mentioned the word in his syndicated column Words, wit and wisdom (5 Nov 1963), stating that the word was “recently popularized” and reporting a difference in the definitions then used in the US (“children born at different times of the same parents”) and in the UK (“children having one or both parents in common”).
for reference, here is the OED’s n-gram for “sibling”:
Tags:
#what the fuck #this is like when I learned yesterday that the two-wheeled telescopic-handle suitcase was invented in *1987* #which is also! the year that scrunchies became a thing! #…what new things do people just a little younger than me assume have been around Forever #language #history #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once
Brinens and Things 