"Same Old Same Old"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Feb 9, 2008 10:35 AM, Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, Feb 09, 2008 at 10:08:23AM -0500, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
> > Jesse, does the OED have any citations for the expression "same old same
> > old," and, if so,  what is the earliest?  If anyone else has any evidence
> > for this, I would be interested in the earliest citation.
>
> Running out the door now, but I think when we last discussed this,
> the earliest anyone had found was in an American Speech article
> in 1950 or so. Will check later if no one else can dig it up.
>
> We had had a very long discussion about the possible origin in
> "same-oh, same-oh" in an East Asian pidgin.

See: "Bamboo English: The Japanese Influence upon American Speech in Japan" by
Arthur M. Z. Norman, _American Speech_ Vol. 30, No. 1 (Feb. 1955), p. 46:
"The _changey-changey_, _samey-samey_ phenomenon heard among the Japanese is
responsible for _samo-samo_ 'the same' in American slang."

See also: "Baby-San's Lingo" by D. Gordon and R. L. Spear, _Verbatim_ Vol. XXV,
No. 3 (Summer 2000), p. 11, a lexicon of "the language of the bars and brothels
of Yokohama during the decade or so after World War II" derived from the
"Baby-san" cartoons of Bill Hume that ran in the _Stars & Stripes_ (Pacific
edition):
"_samo-samo_ or, perhaps to better suggest the pronunciation, _same-o same-o_
the same. After a hard day’s duty, if a guy was met by his moose at the door
with, 'How your day go, Honey?' a reasonable response would be, 'Samo-samo.'"

--Ben Zimmer

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