[Ads-l] the gift that keeps on giving

[Wilson Gray]

> I must mean "STDs"!

Once upon a time, "social disease," preferred both by my mother and by her
mother, was more P.C. than "venereal disease." But "VD" was commonly used,
whereas I don't recall a single instance of "SD." FWIW, when I gear "the
gift...," I think, specifically, "genital herpes."

On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 11:12 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Earliest?:
>
> 1924 _Seattle Daily Times_ (Dec. 10) 4: The Christmas gift that keeps on
> giving through every month of the year.  A VICTROLA.
>
> 1924 _Trenton Evening Times_ (Dec. 18) 2: The gift that keeps on giving is
> the best gift of all. The Christmas Victrola will give you entertainment
> for every day in the year!
>
> 1924 _Times-Picayune_ (N.O.) (Dec. 17) 12: "The Gift That Keeps on Giving"
> [Victrolas are illustrated.]
>
>
> By the 1970s, the cliche' had become a sardonic descriptor of chronic
> venereal disease. (Oops! I must mean "STDs"! "Venereal" involves love!).
>
> JL
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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