[Ads-l] the gift that keeps on giving

[Jonathan Lighter]

> when I gear "the gift...," I think, specifically, "genital herpes."

I think that was the original extended context for me too, ca 1976.

JL

On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 8:10 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> > 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
>
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> 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."

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