[Ads-l] Or is it just me?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Thanks for that, Charles.  There are plenty of earlier exx. of the string,
but the ones I saw all meant "Or am I the only one chosen?" (or similar).

JL

On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 4:54 PM Charles C Rice <charles.rice at louisiana.edu>
wrote:

> Interesting phrase, Jonathan. Searching the newspaper databases is tricky
> because their interfaces still rely on searching content words while this
> phrase is entirely stop words except for "just." I managed to push it back
> to 1920 with Google n-gram + books:
>
>
> https://www.google.com/books/edition/American_Cookery/MvpDAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22is+it+just+me%22&pg=PA576&printsec=frontcover
> Fargo, Ruth. "Topsy-Turvey". American Cookery XXIV: 8. March 1920. 576-81.
> This is a one-sided epistolary story set between June 1919-April 1920.
> "Aunt Marian has been here two months. Every morning I get up wishing she
> would stay forever -- but by night I
> am glad she is going on the eighteenth. Did you ever feel toward any one
> like that -- or is it just me; am I so at
> fault, I wonder?"
>
> N-gram viewer insists there are examples in 1822 and 1823 but then doesn't
> disclose them.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf Of
> Jonathan Lighter
> Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2022 7:16 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Or is it just me?
>
> CAUTION: This email originated from outside of UL Lafayette. Do not click
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>
>
> 'Or am I the only one who feels this way?'  Now common, but absent from
> OED.
>
> 1937 _Columbus [O.] Dispatch_ (Nov. 22) B-3: Hasn't there been a change in
> attitude these last two years or so concerning Michigan?...Or is it just
> me? Winning from the Wolverines doesn't seem so important as it once did.
>
>
> JL
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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