vintage, adj.

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Sat Oct 1 00:22:46 UTC 2011


OED has this from 1939 ("vintage [Noel] Coward").  The def. is, basically,
"classic."

I wonder whether the more recent ironic sense deserves mention. True, almost
any word may be used ironically, but I encounter this constantly. Last week
CNN described the Iranian president's UN address as "vintage Ahmadinejad."

The def. might be, "all-too-typical and familiar."

Something similar would then be required at "classic," which is also
commonly used thus.

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

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