Recently (and remember I live in a very rural area so it might have been going on for quite some time but just recently arrived here) I have heard people saying and seen people writing the phrase, “Back in the day.”
Until recently I had been familiar with “Back in the good old days,” “Back in the bad old days,” “In olden days” and “Back in my day,” but not this one. These others have always made sense to me, but this newly discovered one (by me) strikes me as so vague it is confusing.
My question is, where, when and why has this taken hold? Did a teen idol begin saying it? Did a popular television show begin using it as a catch phrase? Or is there just a “day” agreed to that I was not aware of?
TV time–Just wanted to elaborate a little on Nostradomus’s definition for you. I have been hearing/saying this phrase for probably five years or so. In my crowd “the day”, depending on the context in which this phrase is used, usually refers to the pinicle or highlight of some phase.
eg.-- I now dye my hair periodically, but back in the day, I had a new color every week.
Well in regard to the teen idol part, there was a song released in 1994 called “Back in the Day” it is by a rapper named Ahmad and it was pretty popular, kind of a reminicent song about when he was a child growing up in a poorer area. maybe this perpetuated the term.