Talk:loosey-goosey

Possible Canadian origins?
I haven't looked into it closely enough to say so with confidence, but it seems like this term may have emerged among Canadian speakers? The earliest quote I could find was a 1946 column in the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail. It appears in The Toronto Star as early as 1955. The earliest mention in the NYT (the only US newspaper I have the ability to search the archives of) is in 1972, by which time the term has appeared a dozen times already between the Globe and the Star. The earliest definitive occurrence indexed by Google Books is in a 1955 article in the Canadian magazine Maclean's, though it's as part of a quote from an American baseball player. There's also apparently a match in the magazine Canadian Saturday Night, but Gbooks offers no preview there.

Just putting the possibility out there in case anyone cares to dig in further. Colin M (talk) 22:16, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Also, another thread that might be worth pulling on re: origins: there is apparently a story (19th c. or earlier) involving a character named "Goosey-Loosey" (with friends such as "Turkey-Lurkey"). Colin M (talk) 22:26, 11 March 2021 (UTC)