antedating bitching (UNCLASSIFIED)

Victor Steinbok aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM
Fri Dec 3 19:55:04 UTC 2010


Further still, but completely unverified.

http://goo.gl/RGyKU
Very truly ours: Letters from America's fighting men. James Waterman Wise
> The second, if not descriptive is forceful--"bitching." Any kick you
> have, when given to expression is "bitching." You "bitch" about this,
> you "bitch" about that, so you are "bitching" again. Bitching is a
> good thing; nice safety valve when you are fed up. Of course when
> overdone it is a pain.
> ...
> Any time a soldier stops bitching, there is something wrong and time
> to investigate.

Both GB and the Harvard catalog have the date as 1943. But that does not
to be the date on the cover in GB, although the image is too small to
tell. Worldcat gave no other records.

     VS-)

On 12/3/2010 2:47 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
> New Yorker, 1945 [date confirmed intrinsically in GB, but neither date
> nor quote verified on paper]
>
> http://goo.gl/jEiQm
> [snippet only]
>> ... comedy entitled "Quit Your Bitchin'."
>
> The story is about "Major General Donald H. Connelly's Persian Gulf
> Command", if that helps verification.
>
>     VS-)
>
> On 12/3/2010 2:30 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
>> OED sense bitch v2 Derivatives "bitching" n 1953
>>
>> _California Tech_ [student newspaper of California Institute of
>> Technology] Vol L #23 4/14/1949 p 2 col 6
>> http://caltechcampuspubs.library.caltech.edu/273/1/1949_04_14_50_23.pdf
>> "John Rogers, however, was at said Theatre Party with Barbie, whom he as
>> fascinated *(26) with his incessant bitching about the njustices [sic]
>> of this cruel world." ["*(26)" is a footnote in the original text]
>>
>> ...

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