'I guess' is around earlier than the OED records, I think. I have memories
of its use by Chaucer.

Robert

> ----------
> From:         Robin Hamilton[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Reply To:     Robin Hamilton
> Sent:         08 January 2002 00:42
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: Nomenclature etc
> 
> Actually, dave, I think you're wrong on this:
> 
> > This issue of 'anti- Americanism' is of interest though, I guess (a
> phrase
> > first recorded in a letter of Richard the IIIrd's btw)
> >
> > Pray define your terms: what is being 'American' and what is being
> 'anti'
> > it?
> 
> The phrase seems to be first recorded in 1773.  (I presume [from the
> content] as used by Edmund Burke, defending the American (then) Colonies
> in
> Parliament, but as I still haven't managed to work out how to trace OED
> citations, I'm guessing on this.)
> 
> Whether this will clarify things or not, here's the full OED2 entry:
> 
> anti-American adj.
> 
> Hostile to the interests of the United States, opposed to Americans. Hence
> anti-Americanism, a spirit of hostility towards Americans.
> 
> 1773 in Amer. Speech (1945) XX. 269 The anti-American doctrine of the
> parliament's right in all cases.
> 1838 in J. S. Buckingham America (1841) I. ix. 173 Now our young men are
> rogues and fops, with extravagant anti-American notions.
> 1844 P. Hone Diary (1889) II. 238 Most of them seem to have escaped the
> foppery of foreign manners and the bad taste of anti-Americanism.
> 1932 H. Nicolson Public Faces xi. 301 Not only did he regard it [sc. the
> communication] as fresh in tone, but he regarded it as anti-American in
> substance ... not merely against the Monroe Doctrine, but against the
> freedom of the seas.
> 1958 Spectator 1 Aug. 167/1 It is not anti-Americanism to feel that now,
> more than ever, we need to cultivate our own idiom and qualities.
> 1963 Guardian 21 Feb. 16/7 The Labour Party-which is anti-American without
> being pro-European.
> 
> ... I'm not saying this is gospel, just what the OED gives us.
> Interesting
> set of citations, but.  Especially if Burke +is+ the one to coin it.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Robin
> 
> [Ooops!!  I see you mean "I guess", not "anti-American".  Try again ...
> 
> Dryden's revision of North's _Lives of the Famous Greeks and Romans_?
> (TOLD
> you I couldn't track the cite-souces):
> 
> a 1734 North Lives I. 294 Famous for yielding the Canal (or Candle) coal.
> It
> is so termed, as I guess, because the manufacturers in that country use no
> candle, but work by the light of their coal fire.
> 
> 1848 C. Brontë J. Eyre (1857) 349 'You've like no house, nor no brass, I
> guess?'
> 
> 1896 Ade Artie ii. 10, I guess I saw as much as two bones change hands.
> 
> 1904 'O. Henry' Cabbages & Kings iii. 51 This café looks on the blink, but
> I
> guess it can set out something wet.
> 
> ... does seem as if we invented the phrase, though, and it crossed The
> Pond
> later.
> 
> R2]
> 
> [DON'T try this in your hard copy, dave -- I ran a boolean search
> "I+guess"
> on the CD, and NONE of the ten examples recorded are under the headword:
> GUESS.
> 
> <g>
> 
> D2]
>