Walk the Walk

[Benjamin Zimmer]

Just to clarify... what Neal was looking for wasn't "walk the
walk/talk the talk," which undoubtedly goes back several decades, but
the compressed "walk the talk" version, which appears to be much newer
(notwithstanding Google misdatings). Unless those '50s DJ's were
walking the talk too?

--Ben Zimmer


On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 1:48 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Walk the Walk
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'm with Michael, though I know very well that the pros don't accept
> personal experience as evidence. I remember the late, great Al Benson
> quite well. Saint Louis's black DJ's practically worshipped at his
> feet. Note, also, that this fits well with Wilson's Claim: that, back
> in the day, it took about ten years for black usages to leap the color
> bar into print.
>
> -Wilson
>
> P.S. Michael, did you ever hear of Freddie Goree? We knew each as
> children in Saint Louis. He's one of the DJ's featured in a book held
> by Widener Library on Chicago's black-music-on-radio scene. -W.
> –––
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
> -Mark Twain
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:03 AM, Michael Sheehan <Wordmall at aol.com> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> > Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster: Â  Â  Â  Michael Sheehan <Wordmall at AOL.COM>
> > Subject: Â  Â  Â Walk the Walk
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > In a message dated 4/30/09 12:01:58 AM, LISTSERV at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU writes:
> >
> >
> >> ubject: "Walk the talk" antedated to 1957
> >>
> >> Today's headline said the now-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter will have to
> >> "walk the talk" when it comes to voting, which reminded me of the possible
> >> idiom-blending -- or idiom-compression -- of "talk the talk, and walk the
> >> walk" or variants thereof. I see that the earliest attestation noted here
> >> is
> >> one from 1984, found by Ben Zimmer:
> >>
> >> Seattle Times, Dec 3, 1984, p. C11 (Factiva)
> >> The blackboard in the Juanita Rebels' Kingdome locker room said it all
> >> after
> >> their 41-27 Class AAA title game win over South Kitsap. "WE WALKED OUR
> >> TALK."
> >>
> >> This was in a 2005 message, from the days before Google Books. Here are a
> >> couple of pre-1984 examples I found there:
> >>
> >> Company Execs and S&H Must Walk the Talk
> >> (Occupational Hazards. By Health Reference Center, 1962, p. 11)
> >>
> >> The challenge for the government will be to walk the talk and be
> >> transparent
> >> and non-political in its decision-making.
> >> (Middle East Economic Digest, 1957, p. 51)
> >>
> >> These examples were pretty isolated; the 1957 one was the only one from
> >> the
> >> 50s, even after checking for "walking", "walked" and "walks". Example were
> >> much more plentiful in the 1970s and 1980s. I haven't checked to compare
> >> with the earliest appearance of "walk the walk" and "talk the talk".
> >>
> >> Neal Whitman
> >> Email: nwhitman at ameritech.net
> >> Blog: http://literalminded.wordpress.com
> >>
> >
> > I can take it back to 1952 based on personal experience. Al Benson was a
> > very popular DJ on a Chicago R & B radio station (WGES?). One of his sponsors
> > was Pekin Cleaners, and Al's standard spiel was, "You gotta walk that walk
> > and talk that talk, because if you ain't Pekinized, you ain't recognized."
> >
> >
> >

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