Maddened by Mad Men

[victor steinbok]

There are a couple of dozen hits on various forms of "hold[ing] down the
fort" prior to 1964. Some go back to 1884, but about a third are from 1948
to 1962, including 1958 and 1962 Jet magazine, a 1960 play and 1958 and 1963
Billboard magazine (twice each!)--in fact, Billboard alone is responsible
for 8 hits from 1942 and 1963. [using hold/held/holds/holding for search
pattern all produce different results]

VS-)

On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Ben Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu>wrote:

>
> On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 12:46 PM, Hunter, Lynne R  wrote:
> >
> > Recent annoyance from _Mad Men_: "Miss Holloway can hold down the fort."
> > "Hold _down_ the fort" is irritating enough in the present day (at least
> > to my particular ear) without its being ascribed to 1962 speakers. (The
> > phrase conjures up a flighty outpost flimsily moored to some low-gravity
> > planet.)
>
> Wilson Follett was annoyed by "hold down the fort" right around 1962, so I
> think
> the "Mad Men" writers were on the money here. Follett died in 1963, and his
> complaint about "hold down the fort" made it into _Modern American Usage_,
> published posthumously in 1966.
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=KgVpvTpFgU8C&pg=PA132
>
> The Recency Illusion strikes again. That's not to say "Mad Men" always gets
> it
> right...
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/magazine/25FOB-onlanguage-t.html
> http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/2356/
>
> --bgz
>
>

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