The World hates Barry, part 2731

[Baker, John]

        So that's why shaggy dog story is still listed from 1946, with
origin unknown or uncertain.  Fred Shapiro and I found a 1937 Esquire
article that discusses them and suggests that they take their name from
a prototype joke about a shaggy dog, see
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0303A&L=ADS-L&P=R1440&
I=-3.



John Baker0




-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Jesse Sheidlower
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 6:11 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: The World hates Barry, part 2731

Alert ADS-L'ers may have just caught me on All Things Considered talking
about the OED's new Balderdash & Piffle series, already mentioned here.
One of the terms on the to-be-antedated is _Bloody Mary_, which OED has
from 1956; Barry found a 1939 example in 2001. (It's the policy for this
series to go with OED2 dates, even when we have improvements in the
files already.)

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