Is there any difference between the two idioms back in the day and back in the days? Most of the free online dictionaries only give the version with day, but I have certainly seen native English speakers use both versions–with day and days.
An example from Cambridge Dictionary:
Back in the day, we had an apartment with a swimming pool.
Is this sentence interchangeable with:
Back in the days, we had an apartment with a swimming pool.
?
Best Answer
Good question. Fascinating NGram supporting Kate's comment about back in the day being a recent development.
Google Ngram Back in The Day vs Back in the Days
To some extent your sentences are not interchangeable. Your second sentence should read something like -
Which is like saying -
Back in the Day, is a slangy way of saying, when I was younger or some time ago. The phrase is usually followed by a anecdote describing what someone experienced or how they behaved in their past.
Back in the days is the more traditional usage of the phrase and its usage is slightly different. It is used to establish a time frame and is intended to be more specific than its slangy counterpart. It is generally followed by some illustrative phrase, often starting with the word 'of', intended to establish a time period.