[Ads-l] Antedating of "Bummer" (Unpleasant Experience)

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Excellent citations, Fred. Based on the match you found I found the
same text in a newspaper that was published six days earlier. The
words were spoken by a person at "Whisky a-Go-Go" on the Sunset Strip.

Date: October 24, 1966
Newspaper: San Francisco Chronicle
Newspaper Location: San Francisco, California
Article: As L.A. Goes It's Real Gone
Author: Arthur Hoppe
Quote Page 43, Column 5
Database: Newspapers.com

https://www.newspapers.com/article/san-francisco-chronicle-bummer/188138504/

[Begin excerpt]
Stepping into a typical, average establishment called "The Whisky
a-Go-Go," I spent two hours exhaustively interviewing such typical,
average voters as a little old boy in short pants and tennis shoes, a
lady in spangled trousers and matching halter and something in a
sailor suit, black net stockings and deerskin boots eating raisins.

Unfortunately, my notes are few because I couldn't hear any answers
except when the band wasn't playing. But they include: "You trying to
put me on a bummer?" "Like it's a freak out, man." And, inevitably:
"What are you, some kind of nut?"
[End excerpt]

The OED has another sense of "bummer" which is linked to LSD. The
first OED citation for this sense was from 1968. Below is a match in
November 1966.

[Begin OED excerpt]
bummer noun
2. An unpleasant or distressing (psychological) experience caused by
taking a hallucinogenic drug (especially LSD). Cf. bad trip n., bum
trip n.
[End OED excerpt]

Date: November 18, 1966
Newspaper: Berkeley Daily Gazette
Newspaper Location: Berkeley, California
Article: A Reporter's Quest: How Users Look at LSD -- Glorious, Dangerous
Quote Page 12, Column 3
Database: Newspapers.com

https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-berkeley-gazette-bummertrip/188139241/

[Begin excerpt]
"I think it's like this," said the 20-year-old collegion after the
first "bummer" trip had passed from his mind for the very first time,
"LSD is a poison in your system attacks your mind.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Sat, Jan 3, 2026 at 8:41 PM Shapiro, Fred
<00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> bummer (OED 1967)
>
> 1966 Chula Vista Star-News 30 Oct. 12/4 (Californis Digital Newspaper Collection)  You trying to put me on a bummer.
>
> 1966 College Times (California State University, Los Angeles) 16 Dec. 5/3 (JSTOR)  When they're playing games and you're not, it's kind of a bummer.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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