tight as a tick

[Tom Zurinskas]

I always figured "tight" as meaning cheap with money.  So tight as a tick would be very cheap, I suppose.  Akin to tight wad.  Drunks on the other hand do not appear tight so much as loose.

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at authorhouse.com.





> Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:51:36 -0500
> From: RonButters at AOL.COM
> Subject: tight as a tick
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: RonButters at AOL.COM
> Subject: tight as a tick
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I would not find it odd to use this either in the sense "drunk," though the
> sense of "tight" found in "tightwad" always seemed to me to make the most sense
> (and, therefore, I assumed this to be the original sense). The use for "tight
> race" sounds weird, but only because it makes less sense in terms of the
> mental leap needed to make the connection--ticks are tight to the body (like a
> miser and her money). Less probably, drunk people clutch furniture and lampposts
> to stay erect. Ticks themselves do not seem particularly drunken.
>
> Do people really say "tight" for drunk these days? Sounds rather
> old-fashioned to me.
>
> I'm more than a little surprise that Dennis Preston did not find the
> parsimonious sense.
>
> I agree with Larry that these similes quickly get extended beyond theirs. I'd
> assume that "high as a kite" started with something more literal than
> drunkenness, though just what I can't imagine.
>
>
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