Brad DeLong says,
A tariff is a revenue bill. And revenue bills must originate in the House of Representatives. (Although what “originate” means when procedure allows amendments in the nature of substitutes I do not know.) So it is Hawley-Smoot.
My linguist friends tell me usage is king.
- In JSTOR, I find 317 instances of “Hawley-Smoot” and 525 instances of “Smoot-Hawley.”
- In Google Books, I find 907 instances of “Hawley-Smoot” and 1063 of “Smoot-Hawley.” (Owing to a felicitous typo, I also find 96 instances of the much more awesome “Smooth-Hawley.”)
On the other hand, that’s lily-livered descriptivism. Also, DeLong says my book is “excellent.”
So I think DeLong, and my eighth-grade US History teacher, must be right.
The Edge of the American West 
11 comments
June 19, 2008 at 1:33 pm
kid bitzer
ummm, get a load of my smooth-hawley…laydeeez!
June 19, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Vance Maverick
DeLong also calls your book “little”.
June 19, 2008 at 2:34 pm
andrew
The JSTOR results can be sorted by date…
June 19, 2008 at 2:35 pm
eric
And he calls it a book.
June 19, 2008 at 2:36 pm
The Modesto Kid
An odd choice.
June 19, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Brad
I am going to have to pass on purchasing the book if there is going to be “flogging”.
June 19, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Jason B
I’ll have to go with Wittgenstein on this one: “Meaning is use.”
June 19, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Vance Maverick
How very Jason B of him.
The flogging will continue until morale improves. (speaking of awareness of internet traditions….)
June 19, 2008 at 8:26 pm
The Modesto Kid
When a flogger interrupts his flogging to make a request of the floggee, it could be termed a “fleg”.
June 19, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Jason B
How very Jason B of him.
My word, I’d swear you’re accusing me of the same thing. I’d no sooner subscribe to “Jason B”-ism (let’s just call it Juzubuzism) than to any other hokamamie ism you might name. Such as communism, which we’ve seen deductively proven can’t work, or Spoonerism, which benefits spoons not a whit, or prism. That just doesn’t make sense. How can one believe in pr?
You’ve distracted me. I’m aware of all internet traditions. Good day to you, sir.
August 8, 2008 at 8:22 am
washerdreyer
Wow, memory really is a tricky thing. I was going to propose that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off helped cause the dominance of “Smoot-Hawley” over “Hawley-Smoot,” but Ben Stein as the Economics Teacher says “Hawley-Smoot.”