"close enough for government work" 1965

Bonnie Taylor-Blake taylor-blake at NC.RR.COM
Sun Apr 27 22:01:31 UTC 2008


Ben Zimmer pointed out:

> Google Book Search has a NASA publication, _Results of the Second U.S.
> Manned Orbital Space Flight, May 24, 1962_ (in snippet view, of
> course). On p. 102, in what appears to be a flight transcipt, is the
> line, "That's probably close enough for government work."
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=hBoCAAAAIAAJ
>
> --Ben Zimmer

"Good enough for government work" is in _Results of the First U.S. Manned
Orbital Space Flight, February 20, 1962_, so it looks like the nine yards of
"____ for government work" was floating around NASA in the early 1960s.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/5jxzv7

-- Bonnie

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