"blow (one's own/someone else's) mind" (was: Re: lid, meth, etc. (1966))

[Ben Zimmer]

From: "Benjamin Zimmer" <bgzimmer at rci.rutgers.edu>
To: " American Dialect Society" <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Cc: "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
Reply-To: bgzimmer at rci.rutgers.edu
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On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 20:25:21 -0500, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
wrote:

>At 5:39 PM -0500 12/20/04, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>>
>>What's the earliest cite for the usual transitive sense (blowing *someone
>>else's* mind)?  I don't have HDAS handy, but the earliest I've found is
>>the LA Times cite above from Nov 2, 1965 (just a few months after "Do You
>>Believe in Magic" was released).
>
>Can't say, but I'll wager the first (professionally) recorded
>occurrence of a zeugmatic occurrence of the transitive sense is due
>to Jagger & Richards (1969):
>
>I laid a divorcee in New York City
>I had to put up some kind of a fight
>The lady then she covered me with roses
>She blew my nose and then she blew my mind.
>["Honky Tonk Woman"-or was it "Women"?]

Well, the Beach Boys used the reflexive sense zeugmatically in 1967:

Laughed so hard
I blew my mind
I blew my cool
I blew myself over.
("She's Goin' Bald" on the album _Smiley Smile_)


--Ben Zimmer