"Same Old Same Old"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Feb 9, 2008 11:50 AM, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>
> 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."

As for "same ol' same ol'", I had previously seen a couple of cites from 1970
(from Imamu Amiri Baraka' play "Jello" and from Clarence Major's _Dictionary of
Afro-American Slang_). Here it is a few years earlier, via Google Books:

---
1967 Bryant Rollins _Danger Song_ 37 It was as Apple had said it, the same ol'
same ol' every day, all week long, sitting in a classroom with forty others,
most of them white.
http://books.google.com/books?id=1eYNAAAAIAAJ
---

And I also see there's a track entitled "Same Old, Same Old" on the album "A
Jazz Portrait of Roger Kellaway featuring Jim Hall" (Regina LP(S)298, recorded
1963, released 1964).


--Ben Zimmer

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