whinge

[Lynne Murphy]

>This is probably documented somewhere, but does anyone know off hand when
>"whinge" entered the language in GB?  I first heard it in the early/mid 80s,
>but I had the impression that it had been around a lot longer.
>
>Jessie Emerson


I think we actually had this conversation before when I was in SA (we
repeat ourselves a lot here, don't we?).  It goes back to Middle
English--OED has citations back to and fairly continuously from 1150.
This isn't a new word.

Lynne


--
Dr M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH UK
phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax    +44-(0)1273-671320