another euphemism

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:07 PM -0400 6/16/10, Wilson Gray wrote:
>I heard "go comando" used ca.1992 by a woman on some after-11:00p.m.
>cable-TV dating show in conjunction with the phrase, "pitch a tent."
>She spoke to the effect that that she preferred men who _went
>commando_ because she liked knowing it when she had caused a man to
>_pitch a tent_.
>
>I didn't find anything datable WRT the latter phrase - Google only
>quotes the undated UD. However, I noticed in passing that someone had
>posted to the UD the Southern
>-and-everywhere-else-that-black-people-live regionalism, _raise sand_,
>as a slang phrase! It was used by my grandparents, the eldest of whom
>was born in 1864. I'm not trying even to suggest a date for the
>phrase. It just that, when I was a child, *really* old, choich-goin'
>peoples - gnome sane? - allowed the phrase to fall trippingly from the
>tongue.
>
>The poster defined the phrase as "throw a hissy-fit." IME, anything
>from the crying of a colicky baby to spousal abuse can be referred to
>as "raising sand."
>
>-Wilson
>
Interesting.  There's a very nice country blues kinda album (yes, I
still call them that) by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant (the latter
having been the lead singer of Led Zeppelin) called "Raising Sand".
I never understood the title, which doesn't correspond to any of the
songs thereon.  Now I know.  Or at least I know it doesn't relate
directly to either pitching a tent or going commando.

(I'm not where I have access to the relevant volumes of DARE, which
may have entries for "raising sand" under R- or S-.)

LH

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