Not exactly a saying, but I was surprised to learn that the “can you hear me now” started after 2000. I could have sworn I heard it earlier.
No evidence, but yeah, I always thought the commercial was playing up a common phrase used by people walking around trying to get a better signal. I recall being embarrassed saying it so I had to switch to something else, because it just seemed like echoing the commercial. Of course memory is flawed.
I know such phenomenon is fairly common when studying the origins of words or phrases. The first recorded use in newspapers, etc. may be years after the phrase began being used, and only was recorded because it was common.
The phrase could date back to 1998 or something!
It’s right there in the quote. “It will serve, in future years, to remind you of your sunny girlhood” seems pretty clearly to imply that the future years will not be so sunny.
That phrase, he originated, but he was riffing off of the much older “We have met the enemy and he is ours”, which dates back at least to Admiral Perry.
Well, that obviously had to be after cell phones became mainstream.
Did he get a post-mortum promotion? Because he was never an admiral during his lifetime. No American admirals existed until Farragut in the Civil War.
That itself is much later than most people would expect. Maybe we can start a new thread about things that aren’t as old as you think they are.