Bomb

[Jonathan Lighter]

Anything truly splendid is currently designated"da [i.e., 'the'] bomb" by rap-happy American youth. This has been going on since at least 1997.

ISTR the test-related positive usage from the distant past but am too lazy to dig out HDAS I for it right now.  (It may simply be autosuggestion, however.)

JL

FRITZ JUENGLING <juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: FRITZ JUENGLING
Subject: Re: Bomb
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Isn't bomb=excellence a Britishism? I remember an episode of Hogan's Heroes in which the heroes are speaking of some performance (in London, I believe) in which the performer 'bombed.' It was Newkirk who says it. At first, it makes no sense to the American ear.
I don't ever recall bomb=excellence in American English.
Fritz

>>> halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU 03/14/05 08:08AM >>>
In the MIT slang list was:

'Bomb - When performed on a quiz, excellence; when performed on the "East
Campus Fence", extreme excellence.'

Am I right in thinking that since this list was published (and in general usage
- I've never been even once to MIT), *bomb* has reversed its slang meaning? To
me, at least, in the context of tests (academic or in the more general sense of
'doing something challenging'), it now means 'fail'. In my mental lexicon it
has always been a shortening of 'bomb out'.

Damien Hall
University of Pennsylvania

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