American culture was influencing Europe’s taste in everything from dances to music to women’s shoes, reported an October 1925 New York Times Magazine article – including Europeans saying the phrase “I guess.”
The journalist Harry J. Greenwall wrote that the phrase was considered a stereotypical American expression circa 1925. When I searched the phrase’s use in books over time, using Google Books Ngram Viewer, an absolutely massive spike emerges around approximately 1918 – never remotely equaled in the 107 years since:
The phrase had actually mostly dropped off by 1925, when this NYT Mag article was originally written.
But why did the phrase soar in popularity around approximately 1918? Curiously, I cannot find a single explanation anywhere on the internet written by an actual human. But ChatGPT, offering its best guess, suggests that it was a combination of:
The rise of authors like Ernest Hemingway, who wrote more “realistically”
The influence of American vernacular worldwide, when the U.S. emerged as a dominant superpower after World War I
The increase of “softeners” in language:
ChatGPT: “Around World War I, social norms around deference and self-expression softened slightly — especially in mixed-gender and cross-class speech. ‘I guess’ functions as a softener, a way to hedge or qualify a statement. That kind of polite hedging became more acceptable, especially in conversational writing or dialogue.”
If any actual human can provide a further explanation, please comment below. Perhaps a linguistics or history professor?
New World Manners Pass Over to Old Europe: America’s Speech, Literature, Film, Music, Dances, and Eating and Drinking Habits Reshape Life Abroad
Published: Sunday, October 11, 1925