[Ads-l] years young

[Ben Zimmer]

The Oliver Wendell Holmes example was also cited by the dearly departed
Geoff Nunberg in a 2004 New York Times piece:

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/28/weekinreview/do-not-go-gently-geezers-gerries-and-golden-agers.html

In that same piece, Geoff foresaw that "boomer" would eventually become
pejorative, 15 years ago before the "ok boomer" phenomenon.

--Ben

On Thu, Sep 3, 2020 at 3:05 PM Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:

> OED (revised):
>
> P6. Chiefly humorous. —— years young  [after —— years old (see old adj.
> 4a)] : —— years old; usually with the implication that the person (or
> occasionally thing) referred to has or retains youthful vitality.
>
> First example is Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1889 (quoted in Bartlett's
> Quotations!).
>
> On Thu, Sep 03, 2020 at 02:55:39PM -0400, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > 1879 _N.Y. Times_ (Dec. 21, 1873) 2: The Roxburgh Club...is now sixty-one
> > years old, or sixty-one years young, for the young blood circulating
> > therein has given a new lease to the club's vitality.
> >
> >
> > Former presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden (1814-1886) is meant:
> >
> > 1884 _Alllentown [Pa.] Critic_  (May 27) 2: A cotemporary [sic] speaks of
> > your Uncle Tilden as only seventy years young. Many a youth north of that
> > age is earning his living by the sweat of his brow here in Allentown. To
> > call the Greystone Sage old is an insult to many a Lehigh countian.
> >
> > I haven't checked OED, but I thought the antiquity of these exx. might be
> > diverting.
> >
>

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