[Ads-l] Go postal

victor steinbok aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM
Sun May 24 02:54:45 UTC 2015


Seeing that the qualifying event was in 1986, it seems doubtful that the
phrase would take five years to take root. Following the shooting of 14
people in 1986, there were two other incidents of "workplace violence" with
several months, so I'd expect the coinage to have occurred some time in
1987, which matches my recollection, relative to my timeline (I graduated
in 1987, followed by a year in Columbus, OH, then two more years in
Cambridge, MA, and I would have heard the expression prior to return to MA,
but unclear if it might have been even earlier, still at MIT--given who I
heard this expression from, it seems very likely and I would  date my first
exposure to early spring 1987).

VS-)

On 2:19pm, Sat, May 23, 2015 Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, May 23, 2015 at 1:31 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I remember the expression as being much earlier

My memory is in complete accord with yours, Victor. Therefore, the only
reasonable conclusion is that we are correct. ;-)

--
-Wilson
-----

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list