« Pedablogging | Main | Connect-the-dots authorship »
February 20, 2005
You won't find this in the O.E.D.
Probably you've been spending your sleepless nights wondering, "How old is the phrase shit out of luck?" Never fear; Senioritis has a clue for you! If, like me, you're addicted to random guessing games, you'll want to figure out your own answer before reading on—
The expression is at least as old as 1927. Treasured Partner is copying some of our old LPs and 78s to CD, and right now he's elbow-deep in jazz: Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman—and Louis Armstrong. And behold, Armstrong has a 1927 recording of "S.O.L. Blues" whose lyrics refer to being "out of luck." Now you know.
Posted by senioritis at February 20, 2005 06:45 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://writing.syr.edu/move/mt-tb.cgi/1018
Comments
Actually, it is in the OED (sorry, saw your title as a challenge!). The example they have (under noun form, def. 1 g) is from 1942, though:
1942 BERREY & VAN DEN BARK Amer. Thes. Slang §219/10 Unlucky..shit out of luck, (all) washed up.
Maybe you should let them know about the earlier reference...
Posted by: Jon at February 20, 2005 08:38 AM
Holy sheet! I didn't even look; took it for granted they wouldn't have tracked it. But now you've raised another interesting question: The O.E.D. works from textual references. Do they consider popular music "text," or just print?
Posted by: senioritis at February 20, 2005 10:24 AM
it's probably never occured to them to consider it. their archives, obviously, are inadequate to their task of cataloguing the language!
Posted by: tyratae at February 20, 2005 06:10 PM