honest to blog

[Benjamin Zimmer]

Now that the movie "Juno" has so much Oscar buzz (and attendant
backlash), we might see a rise in usage of some quirky expressions
from Diablo Cody's screenplay, such as "honest to blog":

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0467406/quotes
Leah: Yo Yo Yiggady Yo.
Juno MacGuff: I'm pregnant.
Leah: What? Honest to blog? Are you sure it's not a food baby? Did you
eat a big lunch?
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Gregory Baus started up a blog called "Honest to Blog" in July 2003,
but it was already in use as a jocular blogospheric expression before
that:

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http://jumbledpileofperson.typepad.com/nichole/2003/06/foray_into_note.html
Nichole's Auxiliary Storage, June 25, 2003
I committed a blog-pas and backdated the notes, but honest to blog, I
took the notes in real time.
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And someone used it way back in 2001 on Usenet:

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http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.cecil-adams/msg/59faa608c994403b
alt.fan.cecil-adams, Oct. 24, 2001
They used to air honest-to-blog EDUCATIONAL programs (you know, the
classroom type of show, for credits, not nature or biography
productions) for people to tape and view later.
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--Ben Zimmer

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org