A "Not!" headline (1923)

[Seán Fitzpatrick]

A pity the orange didn't raise a knot on the poor photog's pate.

Seán Fitzpatrick
Beer is good food
http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Benjamin Zimmer 
Sent: Sunday, 20 March, 2005 13:43
Subject: A "Not!" headline (1923)


OED3 gives cites for the sarcastic interjection "Not!" back to 1888,
including the 1893 _Princeton Tiger_ headline found by Barry Popik ("An
Historical Parallel -- Not").  Sheidlower and Lighter's 1993 _AmSp_
article gives further examples from the early 20th century.  I recently
came across a cite from 1923 in the _Chicago Tribune_, showing that "Not!"
was common enough by then to appear in a headline of a major newspaper:

-----
Chicago Tribune, Mar 25, 1923, p. A2, col. 7

Canadian Girls Spill Brownies Quintet, 18 to 8.
A Good Sport -- Not!

One of the poorest exhibitions of sportsmanship ever shown in this city
occurred last night during the basketball game between the Uptown Brownies
and the London, Ont., Shamrocks at the Broadway armory. A man named
Christensen, a rooter for the Canadian team, deliberately threw an orange
and hit a photographer with force enough to crush the orange and raise a
large welt on the side of the operator's face. Christensen was a good
sport -- not.
-----


--Ben Zimmer