Happy Hour; Amber Alert; Koming; Dialect Books

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:33 PM -0400 8/2/02, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>HAPPY HOUR
>
>I don't have happy hours.
>--"Since I Don't Have You" (song)
>
>    OED has "happy hour" from 1961.  The above song, by the Skyliners, is from
>1958?

Yes, but when they sang

I don't have fond desires
And I don't have happy hours
(Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah) I don't have anything
Since I don't have you-u-u-u

I'm pretty sure the lead singer (James Beaumont) wasn't bemoaning the
absence in his life of  'a period of time (usu. in the early evening)
during which drinks are served in a bar, etc., at
reduced prices, or when free hors-d'uvres are available'.  The
Skyliners' "happy hours" were no more a lexical item than were their
"fond desires", "plans and schemes", "hopes and dreams" et al.
Not that I'm endorsing 1961 as a first cite, but the Skyliners don't unseat it.

larry