The first author to use the term “T-shirt” in a book

If T-shirt weather hasn’t quite hit yet (or is in hiding today), it will surely arrive in your area soon.

So in honor of that meteorological occasion, we’ll share a fun fact from Literary Hub.

The first author known to include the term “T-shirt” in print is F. Scott Fitzgerald, in a passage about what This Side of Paradise’s Amory Blaine is packing for a trip to New England.

Of course, that doesn’t mean Fitzgerald coined the phrase; it simply means his use of it in 1920, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is the first in print that we know of.

Lit Hub has a little more reflection on what Fitzgerald’s use of T-shirt signifies and a discussion of how it became a wardrobe staple.

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