fun with phrases

Garson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Mon Oct 24 22:09:21 UTC 2011


Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> "Look out X! There's a new Y on the block!"
>
> 2,000,000 raw Google hits.  I just heard a Discovery Channel  show
> from 2005 with  lines something like, "Look out Roswell [?]! There's a
> new alien on the block!"
>
> 1978 _Flying_ (June) 28:  Look out, Goodyear, there's a new blimp on
> the block. A West German company, Westdeutsch Luftwerbung, has moved
> its 180-foot-long flying machine to the United States.
>
> My own recollection of the phrase doesn't go nearly that far back, but
> I have encountered it a number of times in advertising contexts.  The
> 1978 ex. sounds as though it may be playing off an already familiar
> construction.

Here is a close variant with "watch out" instead of "look out". The
words appear in a multi-part headline.

Cite: 1973 August 5, Springfield Union, Section Leisure Time, Page
LT-1, [GNB Page 77], Springfield, Massachusetts. (GenealogyBank)

'NEW KID ON BLOCK'
Watch Out Barbara Walters!
Smith Graduate Sally Quinn On the Way to Challenge You
by John Carmody
Special to The Republican

Garson

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



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