antedating bitching (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Garson O'Toole]

Here are two extracts from the 1945 New Yorker cite from the online archive:

Cite: 1945 January 13, The New Yorker, A Reporter at Large: Persian
Gulf Command, Page 26, New York. (The New Yorker online archive)

Grousing about one's lot, or "bitching," as it has come to be known in
this war, has always been a soldier's privilege, and it is one the
personnel of the Persian Gulf Command did not overlook. ...

Bitching itself came to be bitched at: in Bandar Shahpur, one of the
Command's three ports and unquestionably its most rugged spot, the
soldiers put on a sour musical comedy entitled "Quit Your Bitchin'.

Garson

On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 2:47 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: antedating bitching (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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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