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BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!'
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BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' |
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Subject: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: Little Hawk Date: 04 Aug 06 - 02:36 PM I've been wondering about this. It seems to me that the expression gained popularity in the 1980's, and it's been with us ever since. So, who was the nasty S.O.B. who assumed that HE had a life and someone else didn't, and made up that expression? (or at least popularized it) p.s. It wasn't William Shatner. He's famous for having said "Get a life!" to a bunch of Trekkies, but he was not the first to say it by any means. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: Don Firth Date: 04 Aug 06 - 02:42 PM God to Adam? Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 04 Aug 06 - 02:42 PM Don't know, LH. I think I remember who was the third person to say it... Jerry |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: bobad Date: 04 Aug 06 - 02:44 PM What is the origin of "get a life"? (Etymology) ...getting a life might have originally had something to do with getting another life as in the video games when your little guys got knocked off. I used to hear kids asking how many lives the other guy had left, etc. I'll 'get a life' if I ... So the expression or words 'get a life' could have fist appeared, in the 80's, but not quite with its present connotations. It may next (or concurrently) have begun to be used by computer geeks who would spend hours on end at their terminals, and their PC became their life. They would be told kiddingly, or not so kiddingly, by friends, family, and other hackers to 'get a life.' No definite documentation or dates for this, however. The first big-time use of the word in the media was in a 1987 Saturday Night Live skit in which William Shatner, Captain Kirk of Star Trek, does a parody on Trekkie fans. In the sketch, he is the guest of honor at a Star Trek convention. He is asked by fanatical fans wearing pointy ears, several trivia questions concerning the exact combinations of safes he had opened on various episodes (e.g. what was the combination to the safe in episode #38?). He tells these people at the end of the skit to 'move out of your mothers basement' and GET A LIFE... From the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms get a life Acquire some interests or relationships of one's own. For example, Stop sitting around and complaining-get a life. [Slang; late 1900s] From the Jargon Dictionary: Get a life! imperitive. Hacker-standard way of suggesting that the person to whom it is directed has succumbed to terminal geekdom (see computer geek). Often heard on Usenet, esp. as a way of suggesting that the target is taking some obscure issue of theology too seriously. This exhortation was popularized by William Shatner on a 1987 "Saturday Night Live" episode in a speech that ended "Get a life!", but some respondents believe it to have been in use before then. It was certainly in wide use among hackers for years before achieving mainstream currency via the sitcom "Get A Life" in 1990. (extracts from the "Wordwizard" site) http://www.wordwizard.com/indexcommunity.htm |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: Big Al Whittle Date: 04 Aug 06 - 02:47 PM I don't know who said it, but what a good idea! I've given up the hope of doing so, it seems hopelessly ambitious at this point in the proceedings. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: beardedbruce Date: 04 Aug 06 - 02:49 PM and From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Get a Life) Jump to: navigation, search Get a life is an American English idiom. Used as a command, the phrase generally instructs its addressee to go out and make their way in the world, without being supported by outside sources such as parents or benefactors. It may also be directed at someone who is perceived as boring or single-minded like geeks, to suggest they acquire some other, more practical interests or hobbies and get dates, find a job, move to their own house etc. It is also used when people don't know about something that another person considers popular or normal, such as a certain TV show or board game that this person assumes everyone else knows about. The term was popularized by William Shatner's appearance in a 1987 episode of Saturday Night Live, in which he tells a group of trekkies to "get a life." However, evidence of the term's use in the vernacular extends at least back into the 1970s, perhaps as part of a mainstream backlash against hippies. Get a Life (TV series) was a TV show starring Chris Elliott Get a Life (album) is an album recorded by punk group Stiff Little Fingers. The console adaptation to The Sims is sometimes referred to as The Sims: Get a Life because it is moderately different from the original PC games and has a story mode. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: Amos Date: 04 Aug 06 - 03:02 PM Looks like your boy has it as a Claim to Fame, there, LH....'bout time he found something. How odd it should be such a projection!! L:D A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: catspaw49 Date: 04 Aug 06 - 06:07 PM Shatner.....hey,yeah,right.....and your mother's moustache.......Fuckabunch of Shatnershit..........If that numbnuts was the first then let me be the latest to say............... Hawk....Get a fuckin' life. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: Little Hawk Date: 04 Aug 06 - 06:20 PM Well, by golly, maybe Big Bill IS the guy who popularized this expression! Wow. Heavy, man. Okay, so...like, he was doing it in a skit, eh? Like a skit that was a parody, know'm sayin'? Okay, so that means that he was not a mean S.O.B. when he said, he was just pretending to be a mean S.O.B. Besides, the really hardcore Trekkies did need to get a life. ;-) Spaw? Bite me, you doorknocker. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: GUEST,number 6 Date: 04 Aug 06 - 08:26 PM LH .... I hear the weather has been pretty good in Southern Ontario ... why don't you take a walk down in Couchiching Park ... maybe treat yourself to a lunch at that old Railway Dining Car restaraunt. sIx |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: Peace Date: 04 Aug 06 - 08:36 PM I have it on very good authority that the first person to use the expression, "Get a life!" was a friend of mine from Montreal North. The circumstances do NOT bear repeating. FYI. PS His name was Alonzo Kruphaeuer (NO relation to Alfred Shuntermeyer). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: Little Hawk Date: 04 Aug 06 - 08:38 PM Good idea, six. ;-) Yeah, it's beautiful here today. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 04 Aug 06 - 08:56 PM 'Get a Life' first appeared as a definition in Eble, 1985, "Campus Slang" (Apr.), as "advice given to a geek." By 1986 it appeared on CNN-TV (Oct. 29), "ShowBiz Today," "Shut up, Christie, and get a life for yourself." J. E. Lighter, Historical Dictionary of American Slang," vol. II, p. 430. Wikipedia, as usual, is late to the bait, because it lacks peer review. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: jimmyt Date: 04 Aug 06 - 09:45 PM In July 1972 in Washington DC when I stopped by a newsstand and asked Hakim, the attendant what he recomended for a good read, whether I should get a Time, a Look ,a Newsweek, A People, or a Life, he responded with........................ "Get A Life." That was my first experience with the phrase. "Get a Life." That was my first experience, but |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 04 Aug 06 - 11:37 PM |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: John on the Sunset Coast Date: 05 Aug 06 - 01:27 AM Reminds me of the old patter. What's Life? A magazine. How much is it? A quarter. I don't have a quarter. That's Life! What's Life? A magazine (repeat ad nauseum) and this from "The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer" You remind me of a man. What man? The man with the power. What power? The power of hoo-doo. Who do? You do. Do what? Remind me a man. What man? etc. etc. etc. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 05 Aug 06 - 08:10 AM Now that the origin question has been more or less answered, it leaves us to ponder whether anyone has actually gotten a life after having been told to do so. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: Rusty Dobro Date: 05 Aug 06 - 09:08 AM I thought about it, but decided not to. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 05 Aug 06 - 09:45 PM Instruction to a hit man. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: Azizi Date: 05 Aug 06 - 10:01 PM I've grown accustomed to Q posting interesting resource information. But every now and then he surprises me by showing a sense of humor {or "humour" if you spell it that way}. As Tony the Tiger says, "That's Great!!" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: GUEST,Art Thieme Date: 06 Aug 06 - 01:04 AM Whoops, sorry, I thought this was the ass thread. Art |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: ard mhacha Date: 06 Aug 06 - 04:35 AM `Get a life`, suggested by drug addicts, binge drinkers and drop-outs, the great contradiction, uttered by fools. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: Azizi Date: 06 Aug 06 - 05:23 AM Art, LOL! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: GUEST,Joe_F Date: 06 Aug 06 - 09:32 PM Rusty: Very sensible. The people who have tried it seem to have nothing but complaints. --- Joe Fineman joe_f@verizon.net ||: The human species is gregarious but not social. :|| |
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Subject: RE: BS: Who was the first to say, 'Get a life!' From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 07 Aug 06 - 12:31 AM In some book I read recently a character who had too much of everything - electronics, cars, CD's, house, clothes, ex-lovers - considered the possibility that he had tried so hard to get a life that now he could hardly live. It's worth considering. |
