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: S. Worthen (owlfish) wrote,
2012-03-17 18:22:00

S. Worthen
owlfish
2012-03-17 18:22:00

The newness of newlywed

I would never have guessed that "newlyweds" was vanishingly rare before the mid-19-teens. The OED claims rarity merely before the mid-nineteenth century, with instances from 1593 and 1846, but Google's ngram viewer tells a slightly different story of its explosion of use during WWI.

My favorite OED example, for a number of reasons, is this one:

1918 Cosmopolitan Feb. 90/2 A Newlywed can live on Marmalade for about three months.

Tags: language