[Ads-l] ruin your whole day

[Jonathan Lighter]

Literal but hyperbolic - or understated, as in 11/12/24 and 12/3/59.
Certainly a popular idiom for sixty years in my experience alone.

1924 Columbus [O.] Sunday Dispatch (March 23) Magazine Sec. [unp.]:
Something that can ruin your whole day....The half heard conversation!...If
you could only find out what happened!

1924 Indianapolis Star (Nov. 12) 20: You can drag one of these beanies
["slingshots"] over the fence behind you, and it won't go off and ruin your
whole day.

1938 Evening Star (Washington, D.C.) (Oct. 5) B-6: You don't want jangled
nerves to ruin your whole day just because you had a bad night.

1939 Chicago Daily News (Nov. 8) 21: Don't Let a Headache Ruin Your Whole
Day!

1951 C. L. McDermott _A Yank on Piccadilly_ (N.Y.: Vantage Press) 7: Guys
like this can ruin my whole day.

1959 Milwaukee Journal (Dec. 3) 20: Try to avoid mid-air collisions - just
one may ruin your whole day.

Etc.

JL
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I humorously think it is, you can't handle
the truth."

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