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

[Barretts Mail]

1942: Hardy Boys 21: The Clue of the Broken Blade (outline: Edna Stratemeyer Squier, manuscript: John Button as per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hardy_Boys_books <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hardy_Boys_books>).

https://bit.ly/2K0ZwbY <https://bit.ly/2K0ZwbY>

——
Of course we are,” Joe replied. “She’s very beautiful. But we’re not going to go ape over her.”
——

Benjamin Barrett
Formerly of Seattle, WA

> On 19 Jun 2018, at 15:45, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> "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
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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