Ask HN: Where does the phrase "Fast" originate from?

jskherman · on Oct 20, 2023

Update: Did the title not save properly? Sorry about the ambiguous title.

What I meant to ask was: "Where does the phrase 'Blazingly Fast' come from?"

Jtsummers · on Oct 20, 2023

Superlatives and some other words get stripped from titles. Always double check your submission title after submission and edit them back in if appropriate (as in this case). This has been a thing for years, it is not new.

I’d resubmit if you want responses at this point or email (contact link at bottom of page) dang to edit it now.

nickm12 · on Oct 21, 2023

The phrase "blazingly fast" is tightly associated with Apple in my mind. Some searching finds that it was part of the marketing of the Power Mac G4 in 1999. No idea if it was used earlier, but The Forbes article even puts the phrase in quotes, perhaps indicating that it was uncommon at the time.

https://www.forbes.com/1999/08/31/mu4.html

throwaway154 · on Oct 21, 2023

Motor racing perhaps. As in, the wheels are on fire.

I believe I've heard it in relation to the internet since broadband rollout. But who knows, perhaps that's just past experience fallacy.

To see whether or not, try the Wayback Machine. Here's a search for this phrase: https://web.archive.org/web/*/blazingly%20fast

Jensson · on Oct 20, 2023

Fast food maybe, you get what you want immediately instead of having to wait like you do at a normal restaurant.

So FastX would mean that you want to be McDonalds of X.

PaulHoule · on Oct 20, 2023

Fast is better than slow. I'm not going to take any guff about "fast fashion" or "slow food". My #1 problem w/ McDonald's is that it fails to deliver on the "fast" part of the brand promise.

smoldesu · on Oct 20, 2023

If you're talking about the long-term history of the term: https://www.etymonline.com/word/fast

weare138 · on Oct 21, 2023

All I know is it's pretty old. I'm from GenX and I remember hearing it when I was a kid.