"Hot enough for you?" (1876, 1878, 1880)

[George Thompson]

Under the headline "THE TEMPERATURE MODERATING", New York Times,
December 12, 1880. p. 5, we have ". . . by 2 P. M. it was possible to
meet a friend without being asked "is this cold enough for you?""

Proquest shows some other appearances of this variant from other
sources in the years immediately following.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: Bapopik at AOL.COM
Date: Tuesday, August 1, 2006 10:12 pm
Subject: "Hot enough for you?" (1876, 1878, 1880)

> >I found it in NewspaperArchive ("The Daily Miner," Montana
> (quoted from
> Boston "Journal"), 1882). Seems a cliche there too.
> Scot
> ...
> ...
> From American Historical Newspapers:
> ...
> 29 June 1876, Wheeling (WV) Register, pg. 3:
> IT is bad enough to have the thermometer in the nineties, without
> beingobliged to answer on every corner the imbecile greeting: "Is
> it hot enough for
> you to-day?"
> ...
> ...
> 20 July 1878, Philadelphia Inquirer, "St. Louis Visitor," pg. 2:
> The intensity of the heat was the subject of discussion wherever
> two  persons
> would meet. With the thermometer at 97 degrees in the shade people
> werecoolly asked, "Is it hot enough for you," or were given the
> equally cool
> information, "It's hot!" by friends they met with on the street.
> ...
> ...
> 31 August 1880, Wheeling (WV) Register, pg. 4:
> IT is estimated that during the late heated term the expression,
> "Is it hot
> enough for you?" has been said ____ times.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org