Fun with phrases

[Jonathan Lighter]

"Good news, right? Wrong!"

A rhetorical double shuffle I just heard (once again) in a CNN
commentary. GB has an ex. from 1984/85 (not verified, but looks
right). They begin to mount in the mid '90s, esp. in the chummily
written genres of self-help, pop psychology, and business.

There is also the less frequent "Great news, right? Wrong!" from the '90s.

JL

On Sat, Oct 29, 2011 at 5:14 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Fun with phrases
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "turn your life around"
>
> You know, redirect and improve it dramatically.
>
> From NewspArch unless otherwise noted:
>
> 1919 _Ludington [Mich.] Daily News_ (Jan. 7) 6: It pains the court to
> sentence you and I inflict this penalty upon you now with the idea
> that it will give you time to change your ideas of life and help you
> to turn your life around so as to live a better man.
>
> Giant gap.
>
> 1952 Norman Vincent Peale _The Power of Positive Thinking_
> (Englewood-Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall) xv: So in the pages that
> follow I shall simply describe what I discovered that helped me,
> turned my life around. And I am sure that the same wonderful thing can
> happen to you. I believe it will turn your life around also.
>
> 1963  _Newark [O.] Advocate_ (July 18) 34: God saved my soul, turned
> my life around, made me over anew.
>
> 1969 _Heavener [Okla.] Ledger_ (Oct. 2) 5: TURN YOUR LIFE AROUND Enjoy
> Day-Bright Washdays with a Flameless Electric Clothes Dryer.  [The
> flaming kind also work. - JL]
>
>
> Peale's use in 1952 must have helped popularize it.
>
> JL
>
> On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 11:05 AM, Ben Zimmer
> <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: Fun with phrases
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 10:35 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>>
>>> "The predator becomes the prey!"
>>>
>>> I just heard it (again) in a promo for a TV special on shark hunting by humans.
>>>
>>> 165 GB exx.  beginning in 1961
>>>
>>> 70,000 raw ghits.
>>>
>>> The earliest GB exx. refer to the animal world.  By 2000, exclusively
>>> human activity is often referred to.
>>
>> Not surprisingly, "the hunter becomes the hunted" has a much longer
>> history, back to 1875 on GB.
>>
>> --bgz
>>
>> --
>> Ben Zimmer
>> http://benzimmer.com/
>>
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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--
"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