"What part of no don't you understand?"

[Shapiro, Fred]

What is this citation the effective origin of?  Nexis shows the phrase in use back to 1989.

Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Jonathan Lighter [wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2012 9:05 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: "What part of no don't you understand?"

Asked sarcastically.

The effective origin appears to be:

1994 Dennis G. Korby _What Part of No Don't You Understand?: Avoiding and
Defending Against Rape_ (Livonia, Mich.: Koto Press). (Published July 1.)

The GB distribution suggests that the phr. was flourishing by 2000.

JL

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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