undewater basket weaving

[Lisa Galvin]

My understanding of this phrase was not so much that it was an easy course, but rather a useless one (i.e., won't help you with your major, won't help you get a job, etc.). 

 

Lisa Galvin




                                                   



 

> Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 16:02:40 +0000
> From: cdoyle at UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: undewater basket weaving (UNCLASSIFIED)
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> 
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: undewater basket weaving (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> I remember the phrase well (from the early 1960s). But I could never understand why underwater basket-weaving was supposed to seem EASY!
> 
> --Charlie
> 
> ________________________________________
> 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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