M-W and "fantabulous"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

Another baffling item in the Merriam-Webster online newsletter...

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http://www.word.com/collegiate/archives/2006/01/from_the_mail_s_6.html#fantabulous
Our oldest example dates from 1957, in an advertisement in the Science
News Letter for December 7. The ad is for a microscope with an Eastman
f/2.5 7-inch Aero Ektar lens. The top of the ad reads, "A Fantabulous
Buy!"
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A minute or two on Proquest finds the word in a Chicago Tribune ad for
Delta-C&S Airlines from June 23, 1953, with three additional exx in
Joan Winchell's LA Times column from 1955-56. Newspaperarchive turns
up another half dozen exx from 1956.

I'm sensing that the newsletter writer might be a bit out of the loop
at the M-W office...


--Ben Zimmer

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