[Ads-l] Thatababy's Guide to Names and Phrases that Originated in Comic Strips

[Jonathan Lighter]

I think the baby dropped the ball on "Oh, for crying out loud."
Newspapers.com has it from 1917, and non of the early exx. are from comic
strips.

 The earliest "worry-wart" I see is from GenealogyBank in March, 1929. It's
the comic strip "Out Our Way," by J. R, Williams, not T. A. Dorgan.

"The cat's pajamas" appears in 1918, not in the comics.

OED has "alley-oop!" from 1917, before the strip.

JL

On Tue, Mar 3, 2026 at 5:19 PM Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:

> On 3/3/26 00:00, ADS-L automatic digest system wrote:
> > Date:    Mon, 2 Mar 2026 17:42:44 -0500
> > From:    ADSGarson O'Toole<adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject: Re: Thatababy's Guide to Names and Phrases that Originated in
> Comic Strips
> >
> > Thanks for pointing to an interesting comic strip, Amy.
> > Charles M. Schulz did popularize the notion of a security blanket, but
> > the OED's first citation is not from Schulz.
>
> I was hoping someone would have fun with it.
>
> ---Amy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
"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