peggy@ism70.UUCP (05/08/85)
Does anyone out there know where the expression "brand new" came from? How about "brand spanking new"?
ccc@bu-cs.UUCP (Cameron Carson) (05/14/85)
[re: origin of "brand spanking new"] I assumed the 'spanking' part to be derived from a newborn infant's introduction to the cold cruel world. -- Cameron C. Carson Distributed Systems Group Boston University ACC UUCP: ...!harvard!bu-cs!ccc ARPA: ccc%bu-cs.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold%CGL) (05/17/85)
In article <394@bu-cs.UUCP> ccc@bu-cs.UUCP (Cameron Carson) writes: >[re: origin of "brand spanking new"] > >I assumed the 'spanking' part to be derived from a newborn >infant's introduction to the cold cruel world. The addition of a middle word, even in the middle of a word, to add emphasis is quite common in English and many other languages. The phrase that pops to mind is "big f-cking deal", and most of us (at least most of me :->) have heard someone say something like "out-f-cking-rageous!". This is not incompatible with your etymology, which sounds as reasonable to me as anything I could think of. Ken Arnold