Knock yourself out!"

[Wilson Gray]

I've long wondered how it came to be that "Knock yourself out!' has
come to mean what it means, as defined in HDAS and as I'm accustomed
to understand its meaning from hearing it used in the wild, over the
past half-century or so. Here's a possibility.

In 1924, jazz-singer Lilian "Lil" Green wrote and recorded a song
entitled, "Knockin' Myself Out," whose subject is getting loaded on
grass. In addition to the title phrase, the song also contains the
phrase, "Knock yourself out!" In context, the meaning is clearly, "Go
'head on and get high!" Perhaps, over the years, the meaning changed
from "Get high!" to "Have fun (getting high)" to "Feel free (to have
fun getting high) to "Enjoy yourself, feel free, help yourself, do as
you please, go 'head on, get happy," etc,. etc.

FWIW, at least one of these old sides uses "Get gay!" to mean "Get high!"

-Wilson
--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
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                                              -Sam'l Clemens
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The tongue has no bones, yet it breaks bones.

                                              -Rumanian proverb

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