LINGUIST List 3.114

Tue 04 Feb 1992

Disc: Last Posting on Not

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. "STEVE SEEGMILLER", The issue of retrogressive negation is settled. Not.
2. , ..Not
3. , EST

I must admit that I paid only passing attention to the ealier discussion
of the origin of post-clausal 'not', but my recollection is that a consensus
was reached: that this usage originated, or at least was popularized, by
'Wayne's World' on Saturday Night Live. Imagine my surprise, then when
I heard this very construction on Saturday Night Live on Feb. 1, 1992, in
a very old rerun, one from the mid or late 1970's, with Steve Martin as
guest host and the original cast (John Belushi, Gilda Radner, etc.) It
was, in fact, Steve Martin who used the form in question, and it passed me
by so quickly that I couldn't even retrieve the earlier portion of the
sentence. It seems, then, that this construction made it onto national
TV long before Wayne's World.

Steve Seegmiller

Flash: first time in print!
In today's `For better or for worse' cartoon strip (identified as
2-4) we find the following last two panels (preceding situation
is left as an exercise for the reader):

Son: Nothing's wrecked, Mom. We just ran over the Enjo's garbage!
--bent your license plate a bit...guess this is our lucky day.

Next panel (thinks, looking at furious mother) Not.

Note that the author (Lynn) is a Canadian, probably, from internal
evidence, from Toronto or some other Southern Ontario major city.

Geoff Nathan, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
<ga3662siucvmb.siu.edu>

 Nancy.Frishberg.NANCYF.at.YKTVMH.914/784-7654.IBM.Research.H1-B11.P.O.Box.704.Y
 orktown

How many other LINGUISTs heard Steve Martin in the role of "Chaz the
Spaz, President of the Science Club" (on last week's re-broadcast of
Saturday Night Live from 1978) show confidence in his own science
project, by putting down the competition with,
 "I'm really worried about 'Dialing for Toast' -- NOT" ?

Is this an earliest citing/sighting?

Nancy Frishberg (nancyfwatson.ibm.com)