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

[John Baker]

Out Our Way did have a character called Worry Wart, a boy of about eight. However, he did not at all seem to be an inveterate worrier. Perhaps he got the name because he inspired worry in his older brother, who was the viewpoint character. 

The OED has “worry wart” from 1956. Here is a 1945 antedating:  “Worry warts are talking about that 280 billions of money that has piled up during the war.”  Morning Examiner (Bartlesville, Okla.), Nov. 24, 1945, at 4, col. 5 (Newspapers.com). There are several more uses of the term in the piece. 


John Baker


> On Mar 4, 2026, at 11:40 PM, Jonathan Lighter <00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
> 
> 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
>> 
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>> 
> 
> 
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> 
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