g-ma

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Wed May 16 13:02:08 UTC 2012


I can't tell you when I first heard "things are gonna get ugly."
 Seventies? Sixties?  I took no notes because it sounded too "colloquial"
even then.

"G-ma," on the other hand, must be too recent for HDAS.

JL

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 12:38 AM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      g-ma
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> [Gee-mah] in Necessary Roughness S01E04 @5:43
>
> > Is this gonna get ugly, g-ma?
>
>
> No smoke without fire, right? Or did the writers just make it up as a
> "cool" expression? UD thinks it's the former--and tons of ghits to back
> it up.
>
> OED has nothing for "get ugly" either and Onelook chokes on that as
> well. JL? BZ?
>
>     VS-)
>
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