"tough luck" (1876) was Re: antedatings: "tough luck," "oohs and ahs"

[Sam Clements]

Using Proquest, from _The Atlanta Constitution_  19 Nov. 1876, p.2

"The new slang term from the South, "bull-dozing," which means intimidation,
is having tough luck in the newspapers, the proof-readers and type-settters
not having mastered it yet.  It appears as "bull-doging" in most of the
papers, thus casting an undeserved odium upon the faithful creature who
keeps the lettter-carrier at bay, and who has nothing whatever to do with
politics."

Jon--interesting that "bull-dozing" appears in this cite, and M-W cites it
from 1876.  (I don't have a clue if that's their cite).

You're right--it just mean "hard luck" at that point.

sam



----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Lighter" <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2005 8:30 PM
Subject: Re: antedatings: "tough luck," "oohs and ahs"


> 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
>>
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