anachronism on "Mad Men"?

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

If it found its way into print in 1974 (only the most recent antedating), "no biggie" could well have been in use in the 1960s. After all, somebody had to SAY it first, and then it had to get uttered with enough frequency that writers would have used it. (When one finds it in print in scare quotes, that CAN be an indication that it is new to the writer.)

And of course these guys are supposed to be ad guys from New York, the genesis of fashionable buzz words.

"No biggie" from "No big deal" seems likely.

Anecdote is no substitute for hard data, and I can't SWEAR that I heard "no biggie" in the late 1950s from an adult (gay wm, b. c1917) in the advertising business who made many trips from Iowa to New York, but my memory is that it sounds like something he used to say. I'd look in queer novels from the period if I wanted to seek antedatings. .

------Original Message------
From: Douglas G. Wilson
Sender: ADS-L
To: ADS-L
ReplyTo: ADS-L
Sent: Aug 26, 2008 12:09 AM
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] anachronism on "Mad Men"?

Laurence Horn wrote:
> This well-received AMC series about the advertising business is set
> in the early 1960s, which is the primary point--it's big on
> verisimilitude and does a nice job in general.  The episode before
> last (which I just watched on tape) contained the phrase "no biggie".
> As far as I can tell (with the help of HDAS), "no biggie" doesn't
> date back before 1978 or so.  It seemed wrong to me when I heard it,
> so I suspect it really was a lapse on the writers' part.
Seems wrong to me too.

N'archive has a few instances of "no biggie" from 1974 and 1975.

In the 1960's, I think maybe "no big deal" would have been _de rigueur_.

-- Doug Wilson

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