"all of the sudden"

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

Have we discussed "all of the sudden" vs. "all of a sudden" here before? I thought that "all of the sudden" was a Southernism, but Charles Krauthammer used "all of the sudden" in a recent column (published in the Raleigh News and Observer).

Is he from the South?
------Original Message------
From: Benjamin Zimmer
Sender:
To: ADS-L
ReplyTo: ADS-L
Sent: Sep 25, 2008 4:21 PM
Subject: [ADS-L] fundit (1985)

Just read Entertainment Weekly referring to Jon Stewart and Stephen
Colbert as "fundits" -- fun(ny) pundits. The word appeared in the Oct.
2, 2004 New York Times (referring to Lewis Black), as noted by Bill
Mullins and Grant Barrett:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0410A&L=ADS-L&P=R334
http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/citations/fundit_1/

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Irv "Kup" Kupcinet was calling Mark
Russell and Mort Sahl "fundits" as early as 1985.

---
1985 _Chicago Sun-Times_ 17 Sep. 56 (Factiva) WTTW'S 30TH anniversary
celebration on Nov. 9 at the Field Museum will be a gala affair, with
a flock of entertainers including Pearl Bailey, Rosemary Clooney, the
Hubbard Street Dance Company and fundit Mark Russell.
---
1985 _Chicago Sun-Times_ 25 Sep. 50 (Factiva) Mort Sahl, the political
fundit at Byfield's, spends his spare time working on a movie script,
titled "The Last Anchorman," with Gregory Peck and Meryl Streep being
sought for the lead roles.
---

He probably used it earlier, but Factiva's archive for the Sun-Times
only goes back to '85. (NewsBank starts in '86.)


--Ben Zimmer

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