Seven-year itch

[Jonathan Lighter]

Axelrod undoubtedly coined the expression as a fancifully humorous
reinterpretation of an old phrase.

If the Sandburg quote were a valid illustration (and it doesn't really seem
so) one would expect to find at least one more ex. between 1936 and 1952 -
if not before 1936.

There is also the tangentially related phrase "slower than the
seven-year('s) itch," which HDAS-on-a-parallel-world has from 1929 and 1930,
GB from (at least) 1910.

JL
On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 5:24 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Seven-year itch
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> America's Historical Newspapers
> Ohio Statesman, page [4], col. 5 vol. I, iss. 115
> March 26, 1839, Columbus, Ohio, Advertisement
>
> Dr. Mason's Indian Vegetable Panacea....for the cure of....also, that
> corruption
> so commonly known to the western country as the scab or seven year Itch,
> &c.
>
> Stephen Goranson
> http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Michael Quinion [wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG]
> Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2011 4:30 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: [ADS-L] Seven-year itch
>
> A subscriber to World Wide Words asked about the origin of "seven-year
> itch" (or "seven-year's itch"). John Ayto, in the Oxford Dictionary of
> Slang, dates the sexual sense from 1936, but I've not been able to find an
> example before the title of George Axelrod's play of 1952.
>
> Might Ayto have been referring to this:
>
>  1936 C. Sandburg People, Yes 112 'May you have the seven-year
>  itch,' was answered, 'I hope your wife eats crackers in bed.'
>
> though this seems to be a reference to the discomfort of the disease.
> Safire asserted that the sexual sense was an invention of Axelrod's.
>
> My subscriber quoted Walden (1854) in the original sense of a form of
> scabies, which is the earliest in the OED. I found this some years ago:
>
>  1845 Wisconsin Herald and Grant County Advertiser (Lancaster,
>  Wisconsin), 4 Oct. 1/2 [page number uncertain] When Illinois
>  caught Mormonism of Missouri, she caught something worse than
>  the seven year itch.
>
> Can anyone better either of these?
>
> --
> Michael Quinion
> Editor, World Wide Words
> Web: http://www.worldwidewords.org
>
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