"not so much"

[Garson O'Toole]

There is a thread in the archive dated 25 May 2010 that was initiated
by Arnold Zwicky with the following comment:

an exchange from an episode of the tv series Eureka:

High school student: So we're not getting an A.

Sheriff Jack Carter [the central character in the series, played by
Colin Ferguson]: Errr... Not so much.

.....

this is "not so much", a formally muted negative, conveying a
straightforward negative answer.

it's conventionalized for the character, who uses it fairly often.

any record of this use elsewhere?  (i don't recall having heard it
before, which is what made me notice it, but i just might not have
noticed earlier occurrences.)


Larry Horn pointed to an article from the Columbia News Service in 2006
http://www.azcentral.com/ent/pop/articles/1031catchphrases1031.html

(begin excerpt)

Though the phrase has become widely identified with Stewart, it
appeared on several other television shows dating back to the early
1990s, including "Mad About You" and "Friends." But it didn't achieve
widespread popularity until the beginning of the current decade, when
it began to appear on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

It sneaked into the vernacular by becoming what linguists call a
"camouflaged form" of speech, said Michael Adams, professor of English
at Indiana University and author of "Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire
Slayer Lexicon."

"It would be very easy for it to migrate, because it would change its
meaning just a little bit every time it got used until suddenly it was
that dismissive not so much.' "

(end excerpt)

John Baker pointed to a 1992 episode of "Mad About You" that contains
an instance of the phrase used with the shifted meaning.

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1005D&L=ADS-L&P=R7208&m=99623
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1005D&L=ADS-L&P=R7281&m=99623
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1005D&L=ADS-L&P=R7237&m=99623
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1005D&L=ADS-L&P=R7569&m=99623
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1005D&L=ADS-L&P=R7448&m=99623
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1005D&L=ADS-L&P=R7640&m=99623
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1005D&L=ADS-L&P=R7838&m=99623
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1005D&L=ADS-L&P=R7952&m=99623


On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 8:00 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "not so much"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> As a suggestion of how "recent" the past fifteen years are on the scale
> of linguistic history, recall that the period of "Modern English" is said to
> have begun around 1500.
>
> Also, at my age, *anything* that's happened in the last fifteen or twenty
> years is ridiculously recent!
>
> JL
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 7:08 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: "not so much"
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Yes, it's recent usage. It's been discussed here, I believe--and, if I
>> am aware of it, it must have been within the last two years, at most.
>>
>> VS-)
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 6:55 PM, Jonathan Lighter
>> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > I don't understand what you don't understand.
>> >
>> > This is a recent usage (maybe two usages) that has gone unnoticed by
>> > lexicographers or dialectologists.
>> >
>> > Good enough for me.
>>
>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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