Fun with Phrases: "based on the real-life story"

Fri Mar 8 14:56:55 UTC 2013

Jonathan Lighter wrote
>
> 1927 Walter Duranty in _N. Y. Times_ (Apr. 10) E9: "The Mullah's Third
> Wife" ...is based on the real life story of a Tartar girl in a small town
> of the autonomous Tartar Republic on the upper Volga, where Miss Squire
> spent fourteen months.
>
> 1934 _Syracuse Herald_  (Sept. 9)  "Sutter's Gold" is based on the real
> life story of Capt. John A. Sutter, a Swiss immigrant who came to
> California in 1838.
>
> The phrase becomes common in NewspArch papers in 1936 (with and without
> hyphen) - but not in the N.Y. Times till the mid-1960s. (Bosley Crowther
> used it once in 1945).

Here is "real life story" versus "true life story" in the Ngram
viewer. Will one form dominate?

http://bit.ly/WyDlMy

Here is "real life" versus "true life" in the Ngram viewer. Will one
form dominate?

http://bit.ly/15C3Q4c

The Ngram viewer is flawed but it can still be fun, I think.

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