[Ads-l] "wicked" (adv.) = 'extremely' (Maine, 1934) (UNCLASSIFIED)

[MULLINS, WILLIAM D (Bill) CIV USARMY CCDC AVMC (USA)]

CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED

> On Tue, Jan 28, 2020, 3:21 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > The adverbial intensifier "wicked" = 'very, extremely' is common in
> > modern New England speech, and it often crops up in mass-media
> > portrayals of Boston-speak, like Hyundai's new Super Bowl ad with
> > Rachel Dratch, Chris Evans, John Krasinski, and David Ortiz:
> >
> >
> >
> > OED2 records adverbial "wicked" going back several centuries in the
> > sense "wickedly; fiercely, savagely, furiously; 'cruelly',
> > 'terribly'," e.g., Thomas Porter, _A Witty Combat_ (1663), "Yesterday was..a
> > wicked hot day."
> >
> >
> > Here's an example I found from 1934:
> >
> > ---
> > Boston Sunday Globe, Feb. 25, 1934, p. C4, col. 7 [quoting A.K.P.
> > Grindle, an old storekeeper in Hadlock Mills, Maine:] Upon urgent
> > advice he jacked up the price of the remaining lots about four times
> > what he thought was a "wicked good price" to keep the place exclusive
> > and he got it.
> > [via ProQuest -- Newspapers.com doesn't yet have the Sunday Globe from
> > 1934.]
> > ---
> >

Portland Oregonian 9 Dec 1925 p 25  col 5 [genealogybank]
[classified ad]
"Furnished in mahogany and wicked good rugs."




CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED

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