"little green men"; "flying saucer"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Much older than it seemed as a vision of the DTs or insanity:

1895 _St. Louis Republic_ (Feb. 17) III 18:
I want my medicine - see? And she won't give it to me. ...Look at the
little green men on the gas fixtures! See the toads hopping about the floor.

JL

On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 9:05 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Bloch's "LGM" seem more like the hallucinatory sort than the kind from
> space.
>
> JL
>
> On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 7:13 PM, George Thompson
> <george.thompson at nyu.edu> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: "little green men"; "flying saucer"
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 10:44 PM, Jonathan Lighter <
> wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> >  wrote:
> >
> >> OED has nothing before 1961. Tsk.
> >>
> >> GB affords numerous 19th C. British exx. referring to trolls, elves,
> >> and the like.  The following U.S. cites show too that it was used to
> >> refer to imaginary figures supposedly seen in delirium tremens.
> >>
> >> The 1948 is the earliest ex. that refers to denizens of outer space
> >> and, by implication, spacemen in saucers. It suggests that still
> >> earlier exx. may exist in comic books and pulp magazines.
> >>
> >>
> >> 1945 _San Antonio Light_ (Aug. 5) 57 [NewspArch.]: Pink elephants and
> >> "little green men" are often seen around by those who hit the bottle
> >> too often and too hard.
> >>
> >
> > pink elephant n. *colloq.* a type of something extraordinary or
> impossible,
> > *spec.* a characteristic hallucination supposedly experienced by a drunk
> or
> > delirious person (usu. in *pl.*).
> >  1900    *Blue Pencil
> > Mag.<
> http://ezproxy.library.nyu.edu:32445/view/Entry/144203?rskey=3Dr8FNOz&=
> > result=3D1&isAdvanced=3Dtrue>
> > * Apr. 22/1   She don't stand for this booze business, and I'm opposed
> to i=
> > t
> > myself. D'ye see them pink elephants running up my pants legs?
> >  1933    *Official World's Fair Weekly (Chicago)
> > <
> http://ezproxy.library.nyu.edu:32445/view/Entry/144203?rskey=3Dr8FNOz&resu=
> > lt=3D1&isAdvanced=3Dtrue>
> > *30 Sept. 25/3   Nightmares of the modern school are built around =91pink
> > elephants=92 if we are to believe the song writers.
> >  1984    M. Amis
> > *Money<
> http://ezproxy.library.nyu.edu:32445/view/Entry/144203?rskey=3Dr8FNO=
> > z&result=3D1&isAdvanced=3Dtrue>
> > * (BNC) (1985) 93   Goodney, in his white suit, suntan and sliding blond
> > hair, stood out like a pink elephant.
> >
> > "If h had won [on a bet] the sky would have been hung in rose pink
> ribbons,
> > canary birds would have been trilling in every bar room, and he would
> have
> > been steadily drunk until that epoch in all continued debauches when pink
> > elephants begin to sail into the room through the open transom.
> > National Police Gazette, November 22, 1879, p. 15 (per Proquest)
> >
> > GAT
> >
> > On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 10:44 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> > <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
> >
> >> OED has nothing before 1961. Tsk.
> >>
> >> GB affords numerous 19th C. British exx. referring to trolls, elves,
> >> and the like.  The following U.S. cites show too that it was used to
> >> refer to imaginary figures supposedly seen in delirium tremens.
> >>
> >> The 1948 is the earliest ex. that refers to denizens of outer space
> >> and, by implication, spacemen in saucers. It suggests that still
> >> earlier exx. may exist in comic books and pulp magazines.
> >>
> >>
> >> 1945 _San Antonio Light_ (Aug. 5) 57 [NewspArch.]: Pink elephants and
> >> "little green men" are often seen around by those who hit the bottle
> >> too often and too hard.
> >>
> >> --
> > George A. Thompson
> > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ=
> > .
> > Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>



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"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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