[Ads-l] "my bad" redux

[Laurence Horn]

We had a thread on this in October 1997; the consensus was that it originated in the mid 1980s in a basketball context (presumably from players admitting they were responsible for a foul), so basically consistent with the findings below.  It would seem from the Dan Rooney quote, though, that that usage must have established (although perhaps not attested in print) before April 1985.  The truth is out there!

LH

> On Oct 23, 2018, at 11:31 AM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> On the Woot.com blog, Ken Jennings has a post in his "debunker" series,
> "Did Manute Bol Coin the Phrase 'My Bad'?":
> 
> https://www.woot.com/blog/post/the-debunker-did-manute-bol-coin-the-phrase-my-bad
> 
> This appears to rely on research I rounded up in a Word Routes column in
> 2010, after Manute Bol died:
> 
> https://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/the-manute-bol-theory-of-my-bad/
> 
> In that column, I noted that the earliest known citation was one that
> Garson found from Nov. 1985 and posted to ADS-L. (It was subsequently
> included in the OED3 entry for "bad.")
> 
> ----
> 1985 Gainesville Sun 14 Nov. 3E Yes, the Vols still must host Vandy the
> following weekend, but c'mon, Vandy? Oops, my bad, I forgot for a moment
> what the Commodore did to Georgia. Silly me.
> http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ya4RAAAAIBAJ&sjid=vekDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3244,4369872
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2010-April/098781.html
> ----
> 
> That example was from Bobby Tyler, a sportswriter in Gainesville, Florida.
> Here it is earlier in 1985 from Dan Rooney, a local sports columnist in
> Muncie, Indiana.
> 
> ----
> The Star Press (Muncie, Indiana), Apr. 14, 1985, p. C7, col. 3
> I know. I picked Fuzzy Zoeller to win the Masters and he didn't even make
> the cut. My bad.
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/24771896/my_bad/
> ----
> 
> --bgz
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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