This week’s newsletter from Grammarphobia was all about sweating the small stuff, but the root of this slang expression is another slang expression: don’t sweat it. So here is an older post – would 2016 be considered ancient? – explaining its origin.

Q: As someone who ranks high on the perspiration index, I was wondering when the phrase “don’t sweat it” came about.

A: “Don’t sweat it” first showed up in print about 50 years ago, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, but we’ve found a similar expression that appeared in writing 50 years before that.

The OED describes “don’t sweat it” as American slang for “don’t worry.” The dictionary says a positive colloquial version, “to sweat,” means “to experience discomfort through anxiety or unease.”

The earliest example for “don’t sweat it” in Oxford is from a 1963 issue of the journal American Speech: “Don’t sweat it means ‘don’t worry about it.’ ”

However, we’ve found this similar usage in the Dec. 12, 1914, issue of Happy Days, a New York weekly newspaper:

“ ‘What’s the meeting for, anyway?’ said Paul Braddon. ‘Keep your shirt on, and don’t sweat it off,’ said Deacon Small.”

The first positive citation (grammatically speaking) in the OED is from The Hungarian Game, a 1973 espionage thriller by Roy Hayes:

“ ‘Hold off for a moment. I want to watch him sweat.’ ‘The guy’s about to faint from pain.’ ”

As you can imagine, the verb “sweat” in its literal sense is very old, dating back to Anglo-Saxon times. The infinitive was swætan in Old English and meant (as it does today) to emit perspiration through the pores of the skin.

The first example in the OED is from the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (circa 900):

He swa swiðe swætte swa in swole middes sumeres (“He so sweated strongly in the mid-summer heat”).

The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology says that “sweat” is ultimately derived from the proto-Germanic root swaita-, and that it has given us such words and phrases as “sweater” (1882, the garment), “sweatshop” (1889), and “sweatshirt” (1929).

This week’s newsletter from Grammarphobia was all about sweating the small stuff, but the root of this slang expression is another slang expression: don’t sweat it. So here is an older post – would 2016 be considered ancient? – explaining its origin.

Q: As someone who ranks high on the perspiration index, I was wondering when the phrase “don’t sweat it” came about.

A: “Don’t sweat it” first showed up in print about 50 years ago, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, but we’ve found a similar expression that appeared in writing 50 years before that.

The OED describes “don’t sweat it” as American slang for “don’t worry.” The dictionary says a positive colloquial version, “to sweat,” means “to experience discomfort through anxiety or unease.”

The earliest example for “don’t sweat it” in Oxford is from a 1963 issue of the journal American Speech: “Don’t sweat it means ‘don’t worry about it.’ ”

However, we’ve found this similar usage in the Dec. 12, 1914, issue of Happy Days, a New York weekly newspaper:

“ ‘What’s the meeting for, anyway?’ said Paul Braddon. ‘Keep your shirt on, and don’t sweat it off,’ said Deacon Small.”

The first positive citation (grammatically speaking) in the OED is from The Hungarian Game, a 1973 espionage thriller by Roy Hayes:

“ ‘Hold off for a moment. I want to watch him sweat.’ ‘The guy’s about to faint from pain.’ ”

As you can imagine, the verb “sweat” in its literal sense is very old, dating back to Anglo-Saxon times. The infinitive was swætan in Old English and meant (as it does today) to emit perspiration through the pores of the skin.

The first example in the OED is from the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (circa 900):

He swa swiðe swætte swa in swole middes sumeres (“He so sweated strongly in the mid-summer heat”).

The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology says that “sweat” is ultimately derived from the proto-Germanic root swaita-, and that it has given us such words and phrases as “sweater” (1882, the garment), “sweatshop” (1889), and “sweatshirt” (1929).

If you aren’t reading the Conscious Style Newsletter, I highly recommend it.

By Steve Bien-Aimé • August 1, 2017

Media commentators have spent the past few months opining on the chasm between the economically rich and poor—more specifically, the so-called well educated versus the less educated. I, too, want to offer my thoughts, albeit from an inclusive-language perspective. As a language scholar, I’m always interested in how words can elevate people or tear groups down.

Journalists and other advanced-degree holders have resorted to labeling others as “poorly educated” or, worse, “uneducated.” A June 13 Washington Post article on smoking demographics reported that formal-education attainment is correlated with smoking. The article said that the benefits from decreased smoking have helped millions “unless those Americans are poor, uneducated or live in a rural area.” The article explains what “less educated” means, sort of: “those with a high-school-equivalency diploma.”

People who live in rural areas are not necessarily poor or uneducated.

Share Capturing Voices

This conflates a lot of data. People who live in rural areas are not necessarily poor or uneducated. In fact, in the same piece, a smoking-cessation expert was quoted as saying that stress over family and money contributed greatly to tobacco addiction.

But this column isn’t about who smokes and who doesn’t smoke. It’s about who gets to call somebody educated and uneducated. Linguistic and cultural scholars would argue that this power comes to those who have power in society. Dictionaries hold a lot of linguistic power, so let’s take a look at one.

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines uneducated as “having or showing little or no formal schooling.” Before exploring why some view uneducated as a pejorative, it’s difficult to even agree who is uneducated. According to the U.S. Department of Education, roughly a quarter of U.S. adults 25 and older (22.6 percent of men and 26.3 percent of women) had completed at least high school in 1940. It could be said then that folks with high school degrees were highly educated.

Some of the richest people in the world are “less educated,” including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.

Today, most people have a high school diploma. In the 2014–15 school year, 83 percent of students earned high school degrees with their cohorts. That is a significant gain from 1940, but the value of high school degrees has diminished. Many occupations now require a college degree when, decades ago, a high school degree was sufficient (example: journalist). Some argue that many jobs designated for college graduates actually do not require a college education.

However, why is the distinction between “well educated” and “poorly educated”? If the overwhelming majority of people have high school degrees, then why aren’t high school graduates called “sufficiently educated,” for example? A record 33.4 percent of American adults now have college degrees; that means two-thirds of the adult population don’t—and, by extension, are “less educated.”

Some of the richest people in the world are “less educated,” including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Do not interpret this piece as a condemnation of college degrees. As a university professor, I encourage people to attend college as I believe that the benefits of higher education serve people well throughout their lives. Gates himself encourages people to attend colleges and universities while noting that there are many reasons why people don’t attend or finish college. (A good primer on higher-education issues is Paying the Price by Temple University professor Sara Goldrick-Rab.)

We could be precise and just identify people’s actual education levels.

Perhaps one of the reasons we’re experiencing societal polarization is because we’re not using inclusive language more. People catch on to euphemisms, and calling folks “less educated” is akin to calling them stupider than another group. In fact, it’s downright cruel to practice what in many cases equates to privilege shaming.

I know I would not listen to people who discount my experiences because of some arbitrary standard. We could be precise and just identify people’s actual education levels. As people who seek to engage in inclusivity, let’s not privilege college degrees ahead of less formal but important life experiences.

Steve Bien-Aimé is an assistant professor of journalism at Northern Kentucky University. Before receiving his doctorate from Penn State’s College of Communications, Steve worked as a copy editor at The News Journal in Delaware and The Baltimore Sun and served in a variety of functions at FOXSports.com, departing as deputy NFL editor. His research interests include race and gender portrayals in news and sports media.

If you aren’t reading the Conscious Style Newsletter, I highly recommend it.

By Steve Bien-Aimé • August 1, 2017

Media commentators have spent the past few months opining on the chasm between the economically rich and poor—more specifically, the so-called well educated versus the less educated. I, too, want to offer my thoughts, albeit from an inclusive-language perspective. As a language scholar, I’m always interested in how words can elevate people or tear groups down.

Journalists and other advanced-degree holders have resorted to labeling others as “poorly educated” or, worse, “uneducated.” A June 13 Washington Post article on smoking demographics reported that formal-education attainment is correlated with smoking. The article said that the benefits from decreased smoking have helped millions “unless those Americans are poor, uneducated or live in a rural area.” The article explains what “less educated” means, sort of: “those with a high-school-equivalency diploma.”

People who live in rural areas are not necessarily poor or uneducated.

Share Capturing Voices

This conflates a lot of data. People who live in rural areas are not necessarily poor or uneducated. In fact, in the same piece, a smoking-cessation expert was quoted as saying that stress over family and money contributed greatly to tobacco addiction.

But this column isn’t about who smokes and who doesn’t smoke. It’s about who gets to call somebody educated and uneducated. Linguistic and cultural scholars would argue that this power comes to those who have power in society. Dictionaries hold a lot of linguistic power, so let’s take a look at one.

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines uneducated as “having or showing little or no formal schooling.” Before exploring why some view uneducated as a pejorative, it’s difficult to even agree who is uneducated. According to the U.S. Department of Education, roughly a quarter of U.S. adults 25 and older (22.6 percent of men and 26.3 percent of women) had completed at least high school in 1940. It could be said then that folks with high school degrees were highly educated.

Some of the richest people in the world are “less educated,” including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.

Today, most people have a high school diploma. In the 2014–15 school year, 83 percent of students earned high school degrees with their cohorts. That is a significant gain from 1940, but the value of high school degrees has diminished. Many occupations now require a college degree when, decades ago, a high school degree was sufficient (example: journalist). Some argue that many jobs designated for college graduates actually do not require a college education.

However, why is the distinction between “well educated” and “poorly educated”? If the overwhelming majority of people have high school degrees, then why aren’t high school graduates called “sufficiently educated,” for example? A record 33.4 percent of American adults now have college degrees; that means two-thirds of the adult population don’t—and, by extension, are “less educated.”

Some of the richest people in the world are “less educated,” including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Do not interpret this piece as a condemnation of college degrees. As a university professor, I encourage people to attend college as I believe that the benefits of higher education serve people well throughout their lives. Gates himself encourages people to attend colleges and universities while noting that there are many reasons why people don’t attend or finish college. (A good primer on higher-education issues is Paying the Price by Temple University professor Sara Goldrick-Rab.)

We could be precise and just identify people’s actual education levels.

Perhaps one of the reasons we’re experiencing societal polarization is because we’re not using inclusive language more. People catch on to euphemisms, and calling folks “less educated” is akin to calling them stupider than another group. In fact, it’s downright cruel to practice what in many cases equates to privilege shaming.

I know I would not listen to people who discount my experiences because of some arbitrary standard. We could be precise and just identify people’s actual education levels. As people who seek to engage in inclusivity, let’s not privilege college degrees ahead of less formal but important life experiences.

Steve Bien-Aimé is an assistant professor of journalism at Northern Kentucky University. Before receiving his doctorate from Penn State’s College of Communications, Steve worked as a copy editor at The News Journal in Delaware and The Baltimore Sun and served in a variety of functions at FOXSports.com, departing as deputy NFL editor. His research interests include race and gender portrayals in news and sports media.