Q: Can you provide information on the origins of the phrase “don’t sweat the small stuff”? I couldn’t find a satisfactory answer through Google search and ChatGPT. Any insights you can share on this topic would be greatly appreciated!
A: From what we can gather, the colloquial expression “don’t sweat the small stuff” seems to have emerged in the United States during the 1950s.
The earliest instance we have come across is from the student newspaper at Mercer University in Macon, GA: “Have a good time over the summer and don’t sweat the small stuff” (The Mercer Cluster, May 25, 1956).
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “to sweat the small stuff” means “to worry about trivial, insignificant matters (usually in negative contexts); originally and primarily imperative, as in: don’t sweat the small stuff.”
The earliest citation in the OED is from an article in The New York Times dated October 23, 1979, which references Dr. Kenneth Greenspan, a specialist in stress-related disorders at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons.
The article reports that during a two-day seminar at the college, Dr. Greenspan shared a friend’s advice for coping with stress. “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” he said. “And try to remember it’s all small stuff.”
In its entry for “to sweat the small stuff,” the OED directs readers to the earlier expression “don’t sweat it,” described in the dictionary as US slang for “don’t worry.”
The earliest example of “don’t sweat it” that we could locate is from a 1954 issue of Desmos, the journal of Delta Sigma Delta, an international dental fraternity: “Per usual, the seniors and juniors tell the sophomores, ‘don’t sweat it.’”
The earliest citation from the Oxford is from a 1963 issue of the journal American Speech: “Don’t sweat it means ‘don’t worry about it.’”
We delve into “don’t sweat it” in a 2016 post that includes an earlier, similar usage from the December 12, 1914, issue of Happy Days, a New York weekly newspaper:
“ ‘What’s the meeting for, anyway?’ said Paul Braddon. ‘Keep your shirt on, and don’t sweat it off,’ said Deacon Small.”
[Note: This post was updated on February 14, 2024.]
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