road-trip, v.

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 6/5/07, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>
> So what's objectionable about "road-trip" as a verb? Seems
> unremarkable to me. Proquest suggests the verbal noun "road tripping"
> can be traced back to the pre-coeducational days of Yale and other
> formerly all-male schools:
>
> -----
> 1973 _N.Y. Times_ 3 June 39/6 Social life was also strained as the
> women chaffed over ... the continued practice of "road tripping," or
> weekend jaunts by male students to women's colleges.
> -----
> 1974 _Hartford Courant_ 16 May 55/2 Before coeducation, social life at
> the three schools was confined to weekend dating or "road tripping" to
> nearby schools of the opposite sex.
> -----

A bit earlier, as a participial adjective:

-----
1971 _The Tech_ (M.I.T.) 16 Mar. 4/5 The continual bus trips, though,
give something of a road-tripping atmosphere to the exchange,
depositing their students for a blissful hour of Nirvana in either
Cambridge or Wellesley, and then shuttling them home again.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_091/TECH_V091_S0089_P004.pdf
-----

Google Book Search also has a hit for "road-tripping" in the 1971 Yale
Literary Magazine, but no preview is available.


--Ben Zimmer

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