[Ads-l] Query: Was "on the same page" in use in 1971?

[Ben Zimmer]

On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 12:10 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:
>
> Was figurative "on the same page" in use in 1971?  Today I received the
> following query:
> '...But I have an etymological question for you.  In the 2015 film The
> Stanford Prison Experiment which I saw at Leach [Theatre] tonight,
> the expression "on the same page" was used by a group of
> colleagues  supposedly discussing in real time - 1971 - the
> experiment.  I never heard the expression used until more recently
> and associate  it with computer-speak.  The expression typical of
> the era would be "on the same wavelength" to the best of my
> recollection.  It struck me as an anachronism.'

OED dates "on the same page" to 1979. I ruled it an anachronism when
it appeared on "Mad Men" in an episode set in 1963.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/magazine/25FOB-onlanguage-t.html
https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/wordroutes/mad-men-capturing-the-sound-of-the-60s/

--bgz

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