antedatings: "tough luck," "oohs and ahs"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Thanks, Sam.  But nowadays it's more often used sarcastically as an interjection than as a simple synonym for "hard luck." (In the '50s even that had been mostly supplanted by the sarcastic use of "tough!" all by itself.)  Is that what the 1876 ex. is like?

Jon

Sam Clements <SClements at NEO.RR.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Sam Clements
Subject: Re: antedatings: "tough luck," "oohs and ahs"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jon,

Proquest yields an 1876 cite fromm the Atlanta Constitution using "tough
luck" just the way we understand it today.

sam

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Lighter"
To:
Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2005 9:59 AM
Subject: antedatings: "tough luck," "oohs and ahs"


> Both these come from the novel _Bill Truetell_, by George H. Brennan
> (Chicago: McClurg, 1909).
>
> _tough luck_ (OED 1912) :
>
> You've been against a lot of tough luck." (p. 272)
>
> _oohs and ahs_ (OED, from a British source, 1930; it doesn't list the
> form with the spelling "ohs," as here) :
>
> "A chorus of 'ohs' and 'ahs' went up from the admiring Fort Bensonians."
>
> JL
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
>

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com