Teen Lingo site

[Benjamin Zimmer]

Larry Horn wrote:
>
>At 12:11 AM -0500 2/1/05, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>  Another first: on a sitcom, I heard a white character
>>say: "It's your world. I'm just living in it."
>
>This has been big on ESPN's SportsCenter for a while.  A highlight
>of, say, a basketball player X making a great move is shown and the
>anchor says "It's X's world; we're just living in it."  At least
>since the late 90's.  Maybe first with Michael Jordan?  Can you help
>narrow it down, Alice?

John Baker wrote:
>
>        The earliest I see on Westlaw is the Seattle-Times, 6/22/1986,
>where it's a reference to Bo Jackson.  But Westlaw poops out around that
>time, so the absence of earlier cites there is not significant.  I've
>always heard this as referring to Frank Sinatra, and indeed there is a
>9/16/1987 use in the Boston Globe to refer to Sinatra.
>
>        It's got to go back farther than this.  What surprised me was the
> vast range of people to whom it can refer.


Looks like we may have Dean Martin to thank for the expression.  From a
1964 column by Earl Wilson:

Reno Evening Gazette, January 4, 1964, p. 10/1
When Dean [Martin], Frank [Sinatra] and their buddy Sammy Davis Jr.
appeared at the Las Vegas Sands' llth anniversary, Dean bowed to Frank and
said, "It's your world, Frank; I just live in it."


--Ben Zimmer