Antedating of "Get-Go"

[Fred Shapiro]

OED/HDAS's first citation for "get-go" is dated 1966.  Salvatore Volatile
posted the following to alt.usage.english:

ProQuest gives me a slightly earlier hit, from 1962, in an article by
Langston Hughes in the _Chicago Defender_:

   "IF I HAD of had had," said Simple, "I would teach them about sex from
   the get-go, beginning with the first step out of the  cradle, so they
   would not make a mis-step."

One thing is quite clear:  all the early citations for the phrase have
some African-American association (for example, the second cite in the OED
is from Sammy Davis Jr.).

It's possible that sports played a role in the dissemination of the phrase
to the larger Cooperian public.

[End of Volatile posting]

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
   Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
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