bitchin (was: Re: spaz(z))

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Fri, Jun 24, 2005 at 08:42:57AM -0700, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
>  BTW, though HDAS has a very early cite for "bitchin'"
> ("splendid") from James T. Farrell, I never heard it in the
> '50s. Did anybody?  It's still around after 70 years.

It does? I must have the discount version.

The earliest in my HDAS is 1957 in _Gidget_, with a number of
other early-1960s cites. At the DSNA meeting in Boston, the
term came up in a discussion, and a woman attested it in
exactly the Gidget use: mid-late 1950s, California, no hint
whatsoever of offensiveness or vulgarity (as would have been
expected to be the case with any _bitch_-derived word), and
always, always an -en or -in ending (i.e. not "-ing").

Jesse Sheidlower
OED