Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 243.
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        Date: 2024-11-18 15:58:20+00:00
        From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
        Subject: "extravagant engineering"

This is an appeal for help in finding the origins and history of the 
English phrase "extravagant engineering". According to Google Ngram 
it enters the language in the 1860s, which makes sense given the big 
engineering projects in England at that time, e.g. those for which 
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was the man. Complaints of extravagance 
are not what I am after, rather the observation of mind-boggling 
ingenuity and the resultant complexity of what has been built. 
Eventually the point becomes the dedication and passion of the 
engineer and admiration of what has been accomplished. Nowadays, 
I gather, the phrase is used to point out e.g. how amazing current 
smart machines are as engineering projects. 

Can anyone point to an early if not earliest occurrence of this 
phrase? I'm looking for the exact phrase, not merely occurrences 
of the two words near each other.

Many thanks.

Yours,
WM
--
Willard McCarty,
Professor emeritus, King's College London;
Editor, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews;  Humanist
www.mccarty.org.uk


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