[Ads-l] "close, but no cigar" antedating (1928)

[dave@wilton.net]

OED has July 1929, found by Stephen Goranson in 2013.
 
Daily Princetonian (Princeton, New Jersey), 13 January 1928, 2/3. NewspaperArchive.com.
 
"The Triangle Club is a great institution and all that, but just the same we wish they would cut down a little on those wisecracks which are applicable to Campus life. Too many undergraduates are getting up “parties of four” to do various inane things, and just a few too many of our friends are telling us that “history will never know” that we forgot to go to Chapel Sunday. But the end of our patience will have come if Professor Cawley hands back a profusely red-inked essay with the sprightly remark, 'close, but no cigar'."
 
Note that the July 1929 cite is an alumni note for the class of '28, so it seems that the phrase was popular on the Princeton campus that year, although I don't think Princeton is the locus of the origin.
 
 

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