bad

[Fred Shapiro]

On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Bethany K. Dumas wrote:

> My recolletion is that the usage began in the late 70s or ealy 80s --
> that would include your 18 years, right?

I forget whether anyone contributed any citations when we discussed this
usage a while ago.  For technical reasons, I am probably the only one who
could do a historical database search for _my bad_.  The earliest I come
up with is the following:

1987 _Dallas Morning News_ 9 Dec.  SMU center Glenn Puddy on Florida's
7-2, 245-pound sophomore center Dwayne Schintzius ... He's not out to hurt
anybody.  He jabbed me in the eye, and he said, 'My bad.'  He didn't mean
to do it.

_My bad_ seems clearly to have originated as a playground basketball term,
although nowadays it is widely used throughout sports.


Fred R. Shapiro                             Coeditor (with Jane Garry)
Associate Librarian for Public Services     TRIAL AND ERROR: AN OXFORD
  and Lecturer in Legal Research            ANTHOLOGY OF LEGAL STORIES
Yale Law School                             Oxford University Press, 1998
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               ISBN 0-19-509547-2