Mouseburger and the OED

[Shapiro, Fred]

ProQuest Historical Newspapers has a Dec. 20, 1970 Baltimore Sun article quoting Helen Gurley Brown as referring to herself as "a little mouseburger."

Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Laurence Horn [laurence.horn at YALE.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2012 6:15 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Mouseburger and the OED

On Aug 14, 2012, at 5:51 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> At 8/14/2012 05:37 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>> ...  Although Fox alleges that Brown coined "mouseburger"; I see in
>> the OED that the Daily Times-News of Burlington, N.C. had it 11 years earlier.)
>
> I see that the NYTimes on-line has a correction:  "The obituary also
> referred incorrectly to "mouseburger," a word Ms. Brown invented to
> describe women, like her younger self, who were physically
> unprepossessing and had few prospects. She had used the word at least
> as early as 1971; she did not coin it in her book "Having It All,"
> published in 1982."
>
> I assume there is evidence that the Daily Times-News was quoting Brown.
>
Right; not enough info at the cite/site to know, but the above correction is certainly consistent with it having been that line in '71 ("You've got to be something more than a little mouseburger to get that kind of man.") be HGB's (or HG pre-B?).  No entry in the OED for the literal "mouseburger", referring to the bargain luncheonette special.

LH

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