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#141637 04/02/05 10:01 PM
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Anyone know the origin of the term "dust bunny" or "dust bunnies". Earliest printed use I can find is in a magazine article in Psychology Today, Vol. 22, December 1988, by Paul Chance. I have searched every dictionary at home and on-line with little success.


#141638 04/02/05 10:04 PM
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Better to go to wordorigins to get an authoritative answer to this question:

http://p098.ezboard.com/bwordoriginsorg

Not that you won't have fun here. Stick around and enjoy the zoo.


#141639 04/03/05 12:19 AM
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MWCD (which can be found online) dates it from 1966, if that's any help. (they have yet to make their citation files available to the public.)


#141640 04/03/05 01:33 AM
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#141641 04/03/05 01:54 AM
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What do you call the big clumps of dust that gather under furniture and in corners?

a. dust bunnies (71.92%)
b. dust kittens (0.32%)
c. dust mice (0.98%)
d. kitties (0.31%)
e. dust balls (21.35%)
f. other (5.12%)

(10616 respondents)

http://cfprod01.imt.uwm.edu/Dept/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_72.html



#141642 04/03/05 03:03 AM
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dr. bill writes:
80 years ago, when vacuum cleaners were not common,
and didn't have hoses to reach under beds,
lint would accumulate, and drafts caused by opening
doors would roll a layer of lint into little elongated
balls that looked a bit like mice, especially when a
draft moved them. I remember my mother calling them
'dust mice' when I was quite small.


this suggests that perhaps dust mice came first and eventually evolved
into bunnies as more raw material became available for their feeding.



#141643 04/03/05 04:21 AM
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I just looked under the bed in the guest bedroom and I think that Dust Godzilla has taken up residence there.



#141644 04/03/05 04:38 AM
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Thanks to all who responded to my query about dust bunnies. Gives me a few more places to look as this search, like the dust bunnies themselves, has taken a life of its own and has become a quest.


#141645 04/03/05 12:20 PM
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If you have dust mice, do you eventually get dust kitties to hunt them?
Under MY bed is a federally protected dust bunny habitat!


#141646 04/03/05 03:51 PM
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We've always called them dust balls, and we name them when they reach a certain size . A friend [?] gave me a small ceramic plaque that says, "This house protected by killer dust balls."


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