undewater basket weaving (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Charles C Doyle]

I remember the phrase well (from the early 1960s).  But I could never understand why underwater basket-weaving was supposed to seem EASY!

--Charlie

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From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Mullins, Bill AMRDEC [Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL]
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2010 11:44 AM

Boingboing has a post on the phrase "underwater basket weaving":

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/07/05/underwater-basket-we.html

The original post has a N'archive cite from 1960; comments link to a
Wikipedia article that includes Sam Clement's 1956 cite (without credit
to Sam).  I found a 1952 cite and posted it in the comments there (we'll
see if it shows up), and will for posterity's sake include it here:

_Cedar Rapids [IA] Gazette_, 3/6/1952, p 13 col 1

"Other slangy speech and patter which came as a surprise to our panel of
experts were: "Moose" and "crocodile" as nicknames for an unpopular
girl, "ample samples" making reference to a well-liked food, and
"underwater basket weaving" as a way of saying that a certain course at
school is a snap."

Google books has what appears to be a 1953 cite from the Michiganensean,
the yearbook of the Univ. of Michigan.  E-yearbooks.com has this in
their archive, but I don't have an account there to check it.

A related cite:
_Yale Daily News_ 3/1/1941 p 2 col 2
"For it must be known that Cindy had spent so much time doing her
roommates' Basket Weaving that she had trouble with her own work."
Context indicates this is a synonym for Home Ec.

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