the night is getting old

[Victor Steinbok]

That's right, Wilson.

This shtick is getting old.

I'd have no problem with this if not for two factors--1) the expression
is far older than the plain "getting old"; 2) there is the plain
version, without "getting".

This is mainly why I posted it. I don't dispute that it's possible to
use the expression as you suggest. That's not how it was used in the
show (simply meant that it was late) and it's not how it's used more widely.

YMMV.

     VS-)

On 11/17/2011 5:32 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 5:57 AM, Victor Steinbok<aardvark66 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> It's transparently
>> the opposite of the poetic, "the night is young".
> So, you don't have _get old_ as an independent idiomatic expression
> with no connection at all to _be young_? I.e., if someone said to me,
>
> "The night is getting old"
>
> I'd understand him to mean something like,
>
> "This evening is played out. Let's go home."
>
> OTOH, I might indeed reply,
>
> "No, man. The night is still young, yet,"
>
> hiply reffing the opening words of a sound by The Dells (*not* the
> poetic line, though that's undoubtedly the source of the line of the
> song. Like, who doesn't know the song, "The night is young / And
> you're so beautiful"?): "Oh, oh, oh / Why do you have to go? / The
> night is still young, yet," and earning R-E-S-P-E-C-T thereby.
>
> Youneverknow.
>
> --
> -Wilson

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