Great post Kattrup.
But don't be surprised if you find some individuals who are ready to throw away all the English literature in favour of their own purposes.
It is not always about science or logic.
The Baron
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google ngrams
Some expressions in the diary have been discussed quite a bit
I was just wondering if there were other questionable phrases.
Looking through Google n-grams means searching through 189 billion (189.000 million) words printed in english between 1500-2000 and seeing which decades various phrases pop up.
Obviously, one-off doesn't take off until after well into the 20th century.
"spreads mayhem" - first use 1979. "spreading mayhem" a bit earlier, 1946.
But what about the phrase "to down a [person]" - that seems to be hard to find in a 19th century publication?
So is any variation of outfoxed - outfox, outfoxes, outfoxing. Earliest example in google books seems to be 1911 but it only really catches on after the 1940s. One online etymology offers 1872 as first known use of outfox?
My thrills - a very unusual phrase in google books, it seems, most 19th century results are concerned with "my thrills" in the musical sense.
Mole bonnett - no results!
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