good people (1894)

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS III will offer,

  1891 J. Maitland Slang Dict. 201: “He is great people,” is used in a commendatory sense of anyone.

  JL


Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU> wrote:  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Benjamin Zimmer
Subject: good people (1894)
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Jonathon Green previously found "good people" (used for an individual)
back to 1896:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0405c&L=ads-l&P=3773

Here it is in an 1894 list of New York slang terms in the Milwaukee
Journal ("Street Slang Up To Date," reprinted from the New York
World):

-----
1894 _Milwaukee Journal_ 10 Feb. 6/4 "Good people" is a universal
expression applied alike to an individual and a company. It means a
good fellow or a crowd of good fellows.
[19th C. US Newspapers]
-----

--Ben Zimmer

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