"signature dish"

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:04 AM -0700 7/27/09, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>... briefly discussed on my blog:
>
>   http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/signature-dish/
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
Interesting.  I was wondering whether other uses of the nominal
compound "signature X" might have served as an earlier model for
"signature dish", e.g. "signature tune", s.v. "signature" (sense 9 in
the OED entry):


a piece of music that always precedes or follows a particular
programme or a performance by a particular entertainer or band; also
transf. and fig.

1932 Daily Mail 4 Mar. 11/4 B.B.C. Band's 'Signature'. 'Just the Time
for Dancing' and 'Till Next Time' are the titles of the 'signature'
tunes selected by Mr. Henry Hall for his new B.B.C. Dance Band, to be
used every time the band begins or concludes a broadcast.

1934 Punch 8 Aug. 164/2 My dearest memory of the place [sc. Bilgesea]
is that there was never a moment at which wailing could not be heard.
It is..the 'signature-tune'..of English holiday-makers throughout the
country.

1938 O. SITWELL Those were Days IV. iii. 462 Diminutive moonstones
and giant chrysanthemums were her signature-tune, her speciality
almost, you might say, what she lived for.

...

LH

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