"Tad bit"

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

Or more specifically, it started as a blend: from "a tad" + "a little bit."  Evidently there are several examples of blends involving the expression of something very small, e.g. "teeny" from "tiny" + "wee"; "tinetsy" from "tiny" + "teeny".  
 
Gerald Cohen

________________________________

From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Arnold M. Zwicky
Sent: Thu 8/10/2006 5:25 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "Tad bit"



On Aug 10, 2006, at 7:10 AM, Charles Doyle wrote:

> For several years I've been noticing, both in real life and on TV,
> locutions like "I'm going to add a tad bit more ginger." I don't
> believe OED or other dictionaries record that use of "tad"--or
> maybe the phrase is an idiom.  A Google search for "a tad bit"
> yielded 1,200,000 hits; for "a tad bit of" 102,000 hits; for "a tad
> bit more" 103,000 hits.

i'd guess that "tad bit" is just piling on two minimizing modifiers
-- like "little small" or "tiny little" -- to get the meaning 'not
just a little bit, but a *tiny* little bit'.

arnold

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