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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I saw the movie “Pirate Radio” last night. The story took place in 1966-67, but there were at least two colloquial expressions used which I’m pretty sure didn’t exist until years later: “Think outside the box” and “big-time” (as in “My feelings are hurt, big-time” or something like that). Unless I’m mistaken, that’s some mighty sloppy script writing. Does anyone here know if there’s someplace I can look up the history of such phrases to find out when they came into usage?
Dixon
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The online OED is sometimes useful for newer idioms. It has entries for both of your expressions, for example.
(1) For “outside the box,” the earliest OED citation is 1975. The dictionary comments:
[The idiom makes] allusion to a puzzle in which the aim is to connect the nine dots of a square grid with four straight lines drawn continuously, without pen leaving paper; the solution is only possible if some of the lines extend beyond the border of the grid.
(2) “Big-time” as an adverb meaning “extremely” is older/ The OED gives a 1950s citation: “1957 E. LACY Room to Swing vi. 93 The New York City police are good, big-time.”
Dating expressions can be difficult, however. Idioms often arise in subcultures and circulate for years before becoming visible in publications.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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kem wrote:
”[The idiom makes] allusion to a puzzle in which the aim is to connect the nine dots of a square grid with four straight lines drawn continuously, without pen leaving paper; the solution is only possible if some of the lines extend beyond the border of the grid.”
kem, thanks for the useful info. I guess it would be instructive, in terms of figuring out the actual earliest use of “think outside the box”, to know when the nine dots puzzle was first published. Not sure how I would go about finding that out…
Luckily, it’s not terribly important :^)
Dixon
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A Wikipedia article discusses the history of the problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_outside_the_box
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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