[Ads-l] walk the walk, talk the talk

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Mon May 12 23:10:07 UTC 2025


OED: 1921  [and quite an outlier]

More literal but still striking:

1900 _News and Courier_ (Charleston, S.C.) (Sept. 3) 3 [GenealogyBank]: "He
would find it easier," said Dr. Mandsley,  "to walk the walk and talk the
talk of his infant."

The combination seems not to have become widely known till the mid-sixties.

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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