(fairly) new (but unlisted) "benefits"

[victor steinbok]

Going in the other direction, in the just finished (season-final) episode of
Leverage (TNT), the final scene included a comment about "friends with
bennies". Thought I should mention it in this context.

VS-)

On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 11:26 AM, Ben Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu>wrote:

>
> On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >
> > On Aug 5, 2011, at 10:43 AM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
> >
> > > On Fri, Aug 05, 2011 at 10:37:55AM -0400, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Successively telling GBooks Advanced Search to
> > >> search before xxxx for "[best] friend[s] with
> > >> benefits" (quoted; all 4 combinations) arrives at
> > >> just 9 hits before Dec 31, 2003, the earliest of
> > >> which (that appears relevant) is alleged to be
> > >> Apr 21, 1997, in New York Magazine, Vol. 30, No.
> > >> 15, page 106, a personal ad (a believable source, surely):
> > >>
> > >> "Wanted: Best Friend With Benefits  I'm an
> > >> outgoing, fun, family-oriented 33-year-old (hell
> > >> of a catch), with a lot to offer.
> > >> Nonanorexic-looking Jewish female, living in
> > >> central NJ. I have a lot of plans for the spring
> > >> and summer ... I realized I was missing the
> > >> special guy to share the good times with. You
> > >> should be 31-40, just a bit romantic, ...
> > >
> > > But in context this looks like it means 'committed romantic/sexual
> > > partner who is also a close friend', i.e. emphasizing the fact that the
> > > advertiser is looking for someone who will be not only a lover but also
> > > a close friend. She's not just looking for a friend to sleep with on
> > > occasion.
> > >
> > That seems to be the case in the Morissette song as well, FWIW.  A
> > speculation: maybe the FWB locution was recruited as a kind of
> > euphemism for the already existing "fuck buddy".
>
> That seems plausible to me, based on the late-'90s citations in the
> Usenet archive on Google Groups (http://ddIyP). Exx from '95-'96
> mostly allude to the song, or at least share the underlying concept.
> Here, for instance, is a Morissettian "friend with benefits" in a
> personal ad from 11/28/96:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/dfw.personals/msg/c3dea870a2afe1de
>
> Starting in '98, we see it used more in the "fuck buddy" sense, e.g.:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.romance/msg/aac2adcff389825c
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/

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