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

[Ben Zimmer]

On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 9:56 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
>
> 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

Don't forget that hyphens are tokenized on the Ngram Viewer. So the
form that has come to dominate is "real-life story":

http://goo.gl/AFdxX

--bgz

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

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