antedating of "the candy"

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS has 1892 for this obsolete expression for something or someone
wonderful or held in high esteem:

[1889 in _Wehman’s Collection of Songs No. 30_ (N.Y.:Wehman Bros., n.d.
[ca1892]) 4 : _Cigarette McCarty_ Copyright 1889…Oh! he’s the dandy,
gum-drops and candy,/ Cigarette McCarty, the masher, the swell.]

The syntax probably warrants brackets. (There seems to be no synonymous
"*the gum-drops.")  If the vaudeville song was well known it could have
inspired or helped popularize the expression.

FWIW, William Arthur "Candy" Cummings (1848-1924) claimed to have invented
the curveball. He had the nickname "Candy" by 1878, according to a
contemporary mention in the _St. Louis Globe-Democrat_ of July 4 of that
year.

JL


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

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