bitchin (was: Re: spaz(z))

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:53 AM -0400 6/24/05, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>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

My guess is that it took a while for it to make it out (or back)
east.  I certainly don't remember it in the NYC of the 1950's or
upstate NY of the early 1960's.

Larry