Negative Nancies and other related musings

[Jonathan Lighter]

No Gloomy Gus? (HDAS.)
No Nice Nellie? (HDAS.)
No Dumb Dora? (HDAS.)

I have wasted my life.

JL
On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 10:56 AM, Alice Faber <faber at haskins.yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU>
> Organization: Haskins Laboratories
> Subject:      Re: Negative Nancies and other related musings
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  On 3/20/10 3:03 AM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
> > Negative Nancies made the WaPo today--it has already been in The New
> > Republic ( http://bit.ly/dp1rRe ) since January.
> >
> > http://bit.ly/9hNz4p
> >> Various Negative Nancys spent Thursday puzzling over what ABC News was
> >> thinking by hiring someone outside the box, with little knowledge of
> >> domestic politics, to anchor "This Week." Amanpour, who grew up in
> >> Iran and Britain, the daughter of an Iranian father and a British
> >> mother, will be the first broadcast TV Sunday Beltway show anchor with
> >> a distinctly non-American accent, they said. Some suggested the
> >> decision was foisted upon the news division by its Disneyland bosses
> >> (ABC is owned by Disney).
> >
> > [I included the whole graf for other language-related bits.]
> >
> >
> > UD has "Negative Nancies" going back to 2003. Wiktionary has it back to
> > 2001. UD also has Nosy Nancy, but neither has Nosy Nellie or Negative
> > Nellie. I tried several searches, but the most realistic result I got
> > was {Negative-Nancies | Negative-Nancy}, which gave me about 43000 raw
> > ghits. Doing the two separately gave over a million for one and over
> > half a million for the other--which is just unrealistic. [I just re-ran
> > the paired search and got 44500, then put in quotation marks for each
> > and got 45700] There are 16 current news hits, including Salon, Daily
> > Newarker (NJ) and a bunch of blogs, but neither WaPo nor The New
> > Republic show up.
> >
> > GNA is another matter. The earliest legitimate hit is from the Richmond
> > Times - Dispatch (Jul 29, 1994--in PQ)
> > IT'S YOUR ATTITUDE AND YOUR LIFE
> >> But before you decide to be a positive person or what she calls a
> >> Negative Nancy, you should know that other people can feel your energy.
> >
> > The earliest readable copy of the phrase turns out to be the name of a
> > goth band, which signifies something about the distribution of the
> > phrase, but does not attest to it directly.
> > http://bit.ly/cNo1Bi
> >
> > Of course, it also shows up on South Park (apparently, Season 6 Episode
> > 8, June 26, 2002).
> >
> > http://bit.ly/dvAq1R
> >> Cartman: Okay Kyle, you're being a Negative Nancy. Stop it. Okay
> >> unless you wan't everyone to call you Negative Nancy from now on.
> >
> > The earliest GB hits are from 2001: http://bit.ly/cZgCVK
> >
> > I've never heard "Negative Nellie" but it's widely attested. On the
> > other hand "Nos(e)y Nellie" is quite common.
>
> "Nervous Nellie" is the phrase that comes to mind. Google reveals
> citations as early as the 1920s but I can't figure out how to sort the
> list to find the oldest.
> --
> ========================================================================
> Alice Faber                                       faber at haskins.yale.edu
> Haskins Laboratories                            tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
> New Haven, CT 06511 USA                               fax (203) 865-8963
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org