Nancy in a dictionary

From the first edition of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1969), a library-sale find. When I check a library sale, I always look for a first edition AHD. And I finally found one. The dictionary is known for its linguistic conservatism (meant to counter Merriam-Webster’s supposed permissiveness about usage) and its use of photographic illustrations. The AHD is also known to some readers for its use of a 1957 Nancy strip to illustrate the term comic strip.

[“Comic strip. A narrative series of cartoons”: AHD.]

The Nancy strip disappeared from later editions.

As Bill Griffith notes in his Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller, the Man Who Created “Nancy” (2023), Bushmiller kept a copy of this dictionary on a lectern next to his wingback chair, opened to the page with the definition of comic strip. The dictionary was on the lectern when Bushmiller died in his chair in 1982.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)