[Ads-l] Antedating of "super duper"

Steven Losie stevenlosie at GMAIL.COM
Wed Aug 28 19:37:00 UTC 2024


SUPER DUPER (OED3, 1938)

[begin quote]
...they'll make real honest regular every-day American reservations "that
won't impair its essential integrity" instead of the conceived-by-spite,
political peanut, hypocritical super-duper-American travesty that gave the
opportunity to continue in Europe the wonderfully successful work of
causing strife, starvation, infamy, horror, murder and earth's direst woe
through hell's foulest most malicious, most damnable devil, My Own Cursed
Self.
[end quote]
Source: The Vincennes (Indiana) Sun, 25 June 1920, p.4, cols.1-2 (
newspapers.com)
https://www.newspapers.com/image/1055329052/?match=1&terms=%22super%20duper%22

The article cited above was reproduced in several other newspapers over the
following days, most of which are more readable than the digitized
Vincennes Sun copy, including in the Florence (Alabama) Herald, 1 July
1920, p.3, col.5:
https://www.newspapers.com/image/306272627/?match=1&terms=%22super%20duper%22

Another instance antedating the OED's citation by about six months:

[begin quote]
Manhattan probably is world headquarters for such super-duper services.
[end quote]
Source: Wilkes-Barre Evening News, 21 May 1938, p.9, col.6 (newspapers.com)
https://www.newspapers.com/image/396207701/?match=1&terms=%22super%20duper%22

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


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