You sweet summer child

[thinkprint]

AIBU to feel absolutely fucking murderous when people say this?

And all the first hand evidence on this thread!

you are incorrect. There is no shame in it, but you are, and it’s a bit weird to keep on arguing when you have been presented with fact, evidence, and personal statements.

Mind you it does sound rather lovely. I'd much rather be a sweet summer child than an arrogant prick! 🌞

www.google.com

Oh absolutely, I have no idea where the black books writers got the phrase from.

I’m just saying Black Books coming out before GOT the tv show isn’t evidence either way. Lots of people did read the books, it was a very popular series if you liked that genre.

My Nan (who would be over 100 if she were still alive) said this all her life.

OP is being very meta here.

It's the former!

Fun to watch a great example of it in action in this thread.

People are (probably) conflating in their mind with some other saying such as sweet child.

It sounds 100% like it's a phrase that been around 70 years, but it just hasn't.

It's so horribly/brilliantly patronising. I hate it and love it in equal measures.

No idea if it's an old saying or not.

I'm often wrong, and will admit when I am. Having looked into this one, over the years, I'm pretty confident about this one.

Did you watch the video I posted? have done any research beyond a simple google?

I don't want to repeat myself, but there is no evidence or proof. In fact, only the opposite.

The handful of poems and usage cited, do not use 'sweet summer child' in the same context!! They are always the same ones cited when people discuss because there is no other evidence anywhere. It simply doesn't exist (as far as I know).

Outside of them, if there is other evidence here that I have missed here please link me and I will read it.

And if you can, you would be the first person online to ever find some, btw.

One thing that I'm sure of, is that personal memories are not evidence.

How about the phrase not appearing in any literature at all, anywhere for 100 years before the book came out. Is that not evidence for you the other way? Even if he phrase had gone dormant it would still appear occasionally.

I'm often wrong, and will admit when I am

Except in this case it seems.

Having looked into this one, over the years, I'm pretty confident about this one.

Being confident, just means you are confidently wrong. It doesn't mean you are right.

I hadn't heard this phrase from anywhere but the internet. Haven't seen Game of Thrones. Google reveals there's a debate over it, plenty of forums coming up with the same discussion. The Google overview agrees with you that the phrase in its sarcastic usage originates from GoT Fandom taking the quote from the book.

However, if I might suggest, there is a flaw in your logic, which doesn't mean you are wrong, it's just a note of caution.

I have read a lot. But there are phrases from my youth that don't appear in literature and Google wouldn't give you literary references. It is possible to find the phrase, for example, 'itchy chin', meaning, 'Liar', on the internet, because it was a popular phrase amongst schoolchildren in the 80s, but there are no literary references at all. Basically, nobody has used it in a novel. Or any of the variants, Jimmy Hill, itchy beard, etc.

Now you might say, 'Oh, but it appears on the internet. Well, it's not unreasonable that it would, because it was at it's peak in the late 70s/ 80's/90's. So the generation, then, that has the most prominent nostalgia post presence on the internet. The further back you go, the harder it is to find phrases other than the most well known.

Not every saying/phrase makes it into print, or even on TV. I mean, when did you hear a kid say, 'itchy chin' on any UK TV show even of the time, never mind now. I was born in the early 70s, it's part of my childhood, it wasn't region- specific, but they didn't use it on Grange Hill, Byker Grove, or any of the contemporary dramas.

So, the only reason that phrase exists on the internet is because someone posted about it as a memory at some point. And the primary reason they'd have done that is the reason I first looked it up. To find out why we said it, because it isn't obvious why that term would be used in that context.

'Oh, you sweet summer child' isn't necessarily a phrase people would have shared on the net in a 'why did my Nan say this' type of way, because it's self-explanatory, really.

I suspect there's a whole host of sayings we really did hear that don't appear in books or on the internet. Because there's no reason for them to. They don't stand out in our minds enough to post about them, and authors found they weren't effective phrases to use in novels.

Still doesn't mean you are wrong, but believe it or not, not everything we heard our grandparents say, or even that we remember saying, is going to appear on the net or a novel.

Very fair points!

Thank you. It's interesting. The Mandala effect is absolutely a thing, but I also think there could be something we might call, 'The Shakespeare effect'. The belief that the appearance of a phrase or word unseen in any other contemporary or prior written record must have been invented by the author. It doesn't follow as the night the day. It's not wrong to draw that conclusion, but it's not wholly conclusive evidence.

Excellent posts @ObelixtheGaul

It’s ’chinny-reckon’ (chinny-rec-on) isn’t it?

I’ve never heard ‘itchy chin’ - but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t in use!

ETA: it is also pretty rare that words and phrases aren’t written down somewhere, even going back centuries. Mainstream fiction and non-fiction, private letters, newspapers, dictionaries of slang and idiom etc etc. There are endless sources.

We definitely used both! Chinny and chinny reckon were the original, along with the chin-stroking action, and it was gradually reduced down to itchy chin (with the same action).

Rubbish. I'm in my 60s and it was used in that context when I was young.

No idea where 'early doors' came from, if anywhere, but my dad used to tell me off for saying it in the early 1970s.

That is what the internet is telling you. The people who have been alive far longer than the internet in its current form are telling you it is a phrase they know from their own lives, or have heard in other settings - such as movies or tv series long forgotten and hardly transcribed word for word onto the internet.

From a book

I read a lot and I’ve definitely read it before in American books (usually set in the south) in the context of meaning a naive person.

I’m also in my forties and my (American) friends mum used to say it to us when I was about 12/13.

There is a link here explaining that GOT used the phrase that was already in usage meaning the same - a naive innocent person.
It’s used now in the same way but in a patronising tone.

The link didn’t post

We used to say 'beard, itchy beard' as well with the same action. I, personally never heard 'chinny reckon' used. But that doesn't mean it wasn't in use. I reckon it varied a bit regionally.

People would personally swear blind that Walkers salt and vinegars crisps used to be in a blue packet too.

If it was regularly being used, we’d be able to find regular references online, and in newspapers and books throughout the century. So far we have a couple of poems that don’t use the words to mean the same thing, and people swearing that they used it. But no one wrote it down ever.

Right well I meant the any of the numerous results showing the saying was in regular use, but you obviously have comprehension problems.

Did your gran live in Westeros?