One-hit wonder (antedating 1958 December 27)

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 01:21:05AM -0400, Garson O'Toole wrote:
>
> [Transitioning to a new topic.] Zager and Evans (and this song) have
> been invoked to illustrate the term "one-hit wonder" for many years.
> OED has this phrase listed under "one".
>
> one-hit wonder n. colloq. a performer, etc., who gains only one
> popular success before returning to relative anonymity; a song, etc.,
> by such a performer.
>
> The first OED cite is dated 1977. The redoubtable Ben Zimmer sent an
> excellent 1966 cite from the Los Angeles Times to the ADS list back in
> 2004. Here is an instance in 1958:

Thanks for this, Garson. We had Ben's quote in the database, and it's
not clear why it didn't make it into the entry (from his same message,
we did put in _pschedelicatessen_), but this makes it even better.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

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