Antedating of "Been There, Done That" (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Bill Le May]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of Wilson Gray
> Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 8:53 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Antedating of "Been There, Done That" (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Antedating of "Been There, Done That" (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
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>
> I don't whether this matters to the current thread, but as Fred's cite
> suggests, IME, the bare BTDT is a lot older than the
> BTDT-bought-the-T-shirt version, which has which has always struck me
> as somewhat phoney, since "bought the T-shirt" pretty much restricts
> the saying to rock shows, as opposed to extending it to life in
> general.

When I first heard the phrase, it was more common to obtain t-shirts at
tourist traps than rock shows. As seen on the old shorts that read:
"My parents went to <tourist trap> and all I got was this lousy t-shirt"

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