Talk:Stay the course

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An entry from Stay the course appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 19 February 2007.
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[edit] Really the first popular usage?

Is Ronald Reagan's use of the phrase 'stay the course' in the 1980s really the first usage by a significant personage? I find that very hard to believe.

I am pretty sure Reagan used the term during the 1984 elections. Remember, he was first elected in 1980, so "staying the course" would have meant re-electing Carter. 67.99.40.15 19:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

At this point the article should answer your question with a resounding "no". It is true, at least in my experience, that the phrase has become especially associated with Reagan and his ideological steadfastness. It was definitely the 1982 Congressional elections, though (not the re-election campaign), which took place during a recession and were a shellacking for the House GOP similar to last November. --Dhartung | Talk 09:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Shakespeare uses "Stand the course" (Gloucester in King Lear, Scene VII) and "Fight the course" (Macbeth in Macbeth, Scene VII) to mean the same thing. I thought that it was originally a horse-racing term. I'm struggling to find a pre-1980 popular example of its usage in the current sense, though. Incidentally, apologies - I forgot to sign my question above; it was me Nowheir Apparent 14:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

There are hundreds of examples on Google Books of literary precedents. I think the narrative now is generally correct, that it had obtained the present meaning long ago, but was brought into the right-wing rhetoric bucket by the Alsop anecdote (which he also wrote about in 1958 to much less attention), then made public property by Reagan. Since then the GOP has frequently invoked it, probably as a deliberate coded reference to Reagan. I suspect it's favored by speechwriters because it sounds poetic, even though the meaning has changed completely. --Dhartung | Talk 18:49, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sailing reference?

I thought this was some kind of sailing reference, originally.1Winston 20:28, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

So did William Safire, so you're in good company! --Dhartung | Talk 09:07, 20 February 2007 (UTC)