"no biggie"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 11:42 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
> At 8/29/2008 11:31 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>Ron's "1949" ex. is actually from 1987.
>>
>>The "tunnel in Ba Don Province" clued me.
>
> And as I separately wrote Ron, the return from Google Books for the
> Western Humanities Review hit has "More details" with "Item notes:
> v.41 1987".  This is the first time I've noticed such information --
> I wonder from whom it comes.

That comes from the library that has the scanned volume in question.
I've written both on ADS-L and Language Log that this metadata, when
provided, is generally more accurate than the overall year given by
Google to a volume in a serial publication. That overall year tends to
be the first year of publication of the serial, or the first year held
by the library.

Metadata discussed here:
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0711C&L=ADS-L&P=R5517
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=355


--Ben Zimmer

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