Dan Burley

Benjamin Zimmer bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU
Sun Jul 18 01:51:11 UTC 2010


On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 8:19 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 8:10 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > How old is _uncool_?
>
> GB has a full-page legit scan of _Billboard_ in 1955 that mentions "uncool
> music."  That's the earliest one I've seen.

OED2 has cites from William S. Burroughs' _Junkie_ (1953). Even better
from Burroughs is a letter dated June 5, 1948 (in _The Letters of
William S. Burroughs: Volume I: 1945-1959, Book 2_): "I lost my Texas
driving license for driving while drunk and public indecency. Find
things very uncool in Texas."


--bgz

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