Baby father

Jesse Sheidlower jester at PANIX.COM
Sun Jan 18 22:39:03 UTC 2009


On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 09:24:36PM -0000, Michael Quinion wrote:
> To mark John Mortimer's death, BBC4 re-ran the original "Rumpole of the
> Bailey" TV drama from 1975. A young West Indian accused of stabbing a man
> in a bus queue referred to his "baby father", obviously as a set phrase.
> This is three years before the first example in the OED. Do we know of
> earlier examples still?

I don't think so. OED's earliest example (from Jamaica) is
1978. I don't assume you have full context? (We'll see if we
can track down the script, too.)

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

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