A new use of "duh?"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

Wilson Gray wrote:
> The passage of time probably explains everything. No shit (Sherlock) / no
> shit (Shinola) dates to the late '40's - early '50's in speech. That it
> should have precisely the same meaning a half-century later is not to be
> expected.

And later clarified:
> Finally, as  soon as I had clicked on "Send," I realized that I had crossed
> "no shit" with "you don't know shit from Shinola" to get the non-occurring
> "No shit, Shinola."

What are the earliest cites we have for "no shit, Sherlock" anyway?
There's just one "Sherlock" cite in the OED3 draft entry for "no shit"
and it's late (1994). And what about the closely related "no shit,
Dick Tracy"? Did the two forms come of age around the same time? I can
find cites for "Dick Tracy" from 1978-79 on Amazon/Google Book Search,
but it shows up in two memoirs recalling the '50s (from c. 1952 in
John Singlaub's _Hazardous Duty_ and from 1957 in Leonard Bird's
_Folding Paper Cranes_).


--Ben Zimmer

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