Re" "no biggie" PLUS Beware....

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:45 AM -0400 8/29/08, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>All very sensible (as per usual from JL). Google Books can almost never be
>more than a starting place.
>
>However, I'm still not convinced that the most recent senses of "biggie" and
>"no biggie" cannot be the same (as Larry Horn asserted earlier, in agreement
>with JL).
>
>Q: How do you feel about the problem?
>A: It's a biggie!

Note that this is directly anaphoric, where "a biggie" = 'a big
problem'.  "No biggie" isn't similarly constrained

>A: It's no biggie!

note also that the deletion of "it's" is restricted to the negative form:
A:  No biggie
A:  #A biggie

or compare:
A:  I'm sorry.
B:  That's OK, no biggie.
B':  #You should be, a biggie.

I continue to maintain that negative polarity items (my examples
included "great shakes", "touch a drop", etc.) have neither the
precise distribution nor the precise (or often even the general)
meaning of their positive counterpart, if one even exists.  And that
"no biggie" patterns as an NPI in that way.  In fact, "no big deal"
doesn't quite pattern the way "a big deal" does; the former, but not
the latter, can appear without the subject + copula in the same
contexts.  (And compare too the French _c'est/ce n'est pas
grand'chose_, much more common and frequent than _c'est grand'chose_.

LH

>
>Also, in the 1965 cite, "It's a biggie" can mean EITHER 'it is important' OR
>'it is of considerable concern'. The fact that the author is speaking of a
>number of workers losing their jobs could   certainly be taken either way. If
>nothing else, the cite is indicative of how close the two readings are, and it
>suggests to me one of the vectors of the slight semantic shift from 'important
>event' to 'situation of considerable concern'. If someone really said this in
>1965, it seems to me to suggest that the "no biggie" use found in the Madmen
>episode is not historically impossible--though how likely is an open question.
>
>
>In a message dated 8/29/08 11:33:11 AM, wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM writes:
>
>
>>  "No biggie!" is not quite a simple negationm of "biggie," a "big or
>>  important thing."  "No biggie!" (as usually employed and, I
>>deduce, as used in _Mad
>>  Men_) means, "It is of no concern," which is not quite congruent with "It is
>>  of no importance."
>>
>>  The yearly layoff, e.g.,  in the 1965 Ron adduces, is a "biggie" - a
>>  *sizable* one.  Had the writer said "it's no biggie," my distinct
>>impression is that
>>  it would mean "of no concern to me or us" and not "it isn't a sizable one."
>>
>>  A subtle distinction, perhaps, but one that helps explain why "no biggie" is
>>  not exactly coeval with other uses of "biggie."  People used "biggie" rather
>>  trivially to refer to physical size or degree of  power infuence (as when it
>>  is a synonym of "bigshot").  Only later did it generalize to matters of
>>  concern, most usu. in the negative.
>>
>>  WorldCat shows that the book Ron cites, _The Earch Changers_ really was
>>  published in 1957.  But I recall several occasions when a "snippet" view on
>>  Google Books came from an entirely different book.  Most reecently (last few
>>  days) the snippet view had to do with porn or bikinis while the
>>supposed sourcehad
>>  been published in the 1850s.
>>
>>  Beware snippet views!
>>
>>  JL
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
>
>
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