"smashing good time" - origin?

[occam]

Today I heard the expression "smashing good time" for the nth time. This
time it struck me as peculiar. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy hammering an
object into smithereens with a sledge hammer as much as the next person.
But where does this expression come from? Greeks having a great time
after a dinner? (breaking dishes at restaurants is now outlawed in
Greece.) An inner vandal tells me says it is a much older instinct. Are
there other languages in which one can have a smashing good time?

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

The adjective "smashing" has been in use for a century.

OED:

2. colloq. Very good; greatly pleasing; excellent; sensational.

a1911 D. G. Phillips Susan Lenox (1917) II. vi. 164 When you get
dressed up a bit..you'll do a smashing business.
1914 W. Owen Let. 27 Dec. (1967) 310, I come in hungry to find a
‘smashin’ dinner.
1922 E. Wallace Flying Fifty-five xxxix. 236 I'd take a crack at
some of them with Fifty and even with Meyrick, who is a smashing
good horse.
1944 M. Paneth Branch Street 8 When the children came..to play
in the house they thought it ‘smashing’.
1948 Mind 57 418 The fact is, the verification principle is a
metaphysical proposition—a ‘smashing’ one if I may be permitted
the expression.
1959 Times Lit. Suppl. 2 Oct. 564/2 It is not her fault that the
publishers, in big letters on the jacket, promise ‘as smashing a
last sentence as we can recall!’ That promise is not fulfilled.
The final twist is surprisingly unsurprising.
1977 Chem. in Brit. 13 118/2 This is a smashing book for anyone
interested in surface chemistry and physics to have available on
his bookshelf.

Also there is the noun "smash" in the sense:

6. A great success; a film, person, play, song, etc., which enjoys
popular success; a hit (hit n. 4). Also attrib., esp. in smash hit
n.

1923 Variety 11 Oct. 16 (heading) ‘Rosie O'Reilly’ and ‘The
Fool’, Loop's Two Smash Hits.
1930 Times Lit. Suppl. 16 Oct. 841/1 An entirely strange girl;
whom anyone would have admitted to be a ‘smash’.
1931 Daily Express 21 Sept. 9/3 The magnates who had contracted
to buy the picture indulged in fits of doubt concerning its
prospects as a box-office ‘smash’.
1935 Amer. Speech 10 193/2 Terminology from other fields aids
the fashion editor... The sports writer is also responsible for
the smash hit dinner dress.
1935 P. G. Wodehouse Blandings Castle xii. 305 Our whole
programme is built around it. We are relying on it to be our big
smash.
1948 W. S. Maugham Colonel's Lady in Quartet 201 The English
publisher said to him: ‘We've not had a success like this with a
book of verse for twenty years.’.. The American publisher said to
him: ‘It's swell. It'll be a smash hit in America.’
1949 R. Chandler Let. 23 Apr. in Sel. Lett. (1981) 174 You can't
make me into a smash best seller.
....

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Horace LaBadie]

It's the bomb.

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Sat, 20 Aug 2016 08:09:22 -0400, Horace LaBadie <hlab...@nospam.com>
wrote:

"Bomb" is one of that words that can have opposite meanings,
particularly in informal phrases.

British English:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/bomb

Phrases

1 go down a bomb
British informal Be very well received:
"those gigs we did went down a bomb"

2 go like a bomb
British informal
1 Be very successful:
"the party went like a bomb"

US English:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/bomb

verb

2 [no object] informal (Of a movie, play, or other event) fail
miserably:
"a big-budget movie that bombed at the box office
"he bombed out at several tournaments"

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Saturday, August 20, 2016 at 7:27:39 AM UTC-4, PeterWD wrote:

> Also there is the noun "smash" in the sense:
>
> 6. A great success; a film, person, play, song, etc., which enjoys
> popular success; a hit (hit n. 4). Also attrib., esp. in smash hit
> n.
>
> 1923 Variety 11 Oct. 16 (heading) ‘Rosie O'Reilly’ and ‘The
> Fool’, Loop's Two Smash Hits.
> 1930 Times Lit. Suppl. 16 Oct. 841/1 An entirely strange girl;
> whom anyone would have admitted to be a ‘smash’.

Happily the 1930 sense didn't catch on.

[Janet]

In article <np90p7$od6$1...@dont-email.me>, oc...@127.0.0.1 says...

I had one on Sunday, it was a stall I ran for Childrens Day at the
local museum, called smash bash crash. Very noisy messy and popular with
small boys of all ages.

For several months the local charity shop saved all the china cups
plates and saucers they couldn't sell (and would otherwise have thrown
away).

We set up a table on which we built three tall towers of alternate
cups and plates. Some cups contained a sweetie or toy. The children
stood behind a line and threw beanbags at the towers; if they hit a
tower and knocked it down (huge crash) they won any sweets/toys that
fell out. Then we set up new towers. Naturally many grown men and
grandfathers were inspired to show off their aim.

different version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Os5C3eVUdI

Janet

[bebe...@aol.com]

Not exactly identical, but French had a popular adjective phrase in the 60s that went "à tout casser" = "so good it could break everything", which was slang for "extraordinary".

[Robert Bannister]

I haven't heard "smashing" since at least the 1950s.

--
Robert B. born England a long time ago;
Western Australia since 1972

[GordonD]

On 21/08/2016 01:04, Robert Bannister wrote:
> On 20/08/2016 3:27 PM, occam wrote:
>> Today I heard the expression "smashing good time" for the nth time. This
>> time it struck me as peculiar. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy hammering an
>> object into smithereens with a sledge hammer as much as the next person.
>> But where does this expression come from? Greeks having a great time
>> after a dinner? (breaking dishes at restaurants is now outlawed in
>> Greece.) An inner vandal tells me says it is a much older instinct. Are
>> there other languages in which one can have a smashing good time?
>>
>
> I haven't heard "smashing" since at least the 1950s.
>

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064943/combined
--
Gordon Davie
Edinburgh, Scotland

[Robert Bannister]

Wow! The word hung on. I wonder whether there are example of "super" as
late as that.