"Tell It Like It Is"

[Jonathan Lighter]

FWIW, that squares with my recollection that the phrase entered the national vocabulary in 1967 or '68.

  JL

Brenda Lester <alphatwin2002 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Brenda Lester
Subject: Re: "Tell It Like It Is"
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Fred,

The rhythm and blues classic, "Tell It Like It Is" came out in 1966, but I'm sure the phrase was around long before that.

bl



"Shapiro, Fred" wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Shapiro, Fred"
Subject: "Tell It Like It Is"
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Can anyone illuminate the origins of the phrase "tell it like it is"? Wikipedia says Howard Cosell had a catchphrase, "I'm just telling it like it is," but I am not sure how that fits in to the history of the expression.

Fred Shapiro

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