[Ads-l] "go ape(shit)"

[Wilson Gray]

"Go apeshit" > "go ape" was popular during my high school years, 1950-1954.
I first heard it in 1950. I have no idea when it began. "Go ape(shit)" and
"(real) george" were already well-established, by the time that I first
heard them.


On Tue, Jun 19, 2018 at 6:02 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> I've got a piece up on Slate on the history of "go ape(shit)."
>
> https://slate.com/culture/2018/06/apeshit-etymology-the-
> history-of-the-phrase-behind-beyonce-and-jay-zs-new-single.html
>
> Antedatings for "go ape" (OED/HDAS 1955, GDoS 1954):
>
> Desert Hot Springs (Calif.) Sentinel, Oct. 11, 1951, p. 6, col. 3
> I hear that the new by-word is "I'm going gorilla" instead of "I'm going
> ape."
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21068697/go_ape/
>
> Albuquerque (N.M.) Journal, Dec. 6, 1951, p. 13, col. 2
> "he went ape" -- to extremes.
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21069343/go_ape/
>
> I wasn't able to antedate the earliest HDAS cite for "go apeshit" from Walt
> Sheldon's 1952 novel "Troubling of a Star" ("What do I want to fight for?
> You going apeshit?"). (JL dated the cite to 1951, presumably as an
> approximate date of the novel's writing.)
>
> --bgz
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 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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