Antedating of "MILF"

[Ben Zimmer]

On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 1:08 PM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>
> On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 11:48:24AM -0500, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
>> Jesse Sheidlower includes a citation for the rock band "milf" in "The
>> F-word", I think. The page is blocked in Google Books but the
>> extracted text appears to give a date of 1991 for the rock band.
>>
>> The F-Word - Google Books Result
>> books.google.com/books?isbn=0199751552
>> Jesse Sheidlower - 2009 - Reference
>>
>> [Begin extracted text]
>> MILF noun [mother (or mom) I'd like to fuck] a sexually attractive
>> woman who is a mother or (generally) in early middle age. 1991 (name
>> of rock band): milf.
>> [End extracted text]
>
> 1991 is when the band was founded; Ben Zimmer talked to one of the
> members and reported on this. The OED does mention milf (the band) in
> its etymology, but notes that there's no contemporaneous evidence that
> the band's name was from the relevant acronym, so by OED standards 1995
> is the first quote (and Fred's 1993 quote still isn't an antedating of
> this).

Here's the relevant ADS-L post on the band name's origins:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0705A&L=ADS-L&P=R880

I also mentioned it in this Language Log post about "WTF":

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1766

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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