"bring a lot to the party"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Yeah, why not?

Watch for *"bring to the orgy."

JL

On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 12:37 PM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "bring a lot to the party"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Related, somehow, to the cliche about what one "brings to the table"?
>
> --Charlie
>
> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of
> Jonathan Lighter [wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM]
> Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2012 10:55 AM
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A current commercial shows vegetables whooping it up in the kitchen with a
> bottle of Ensure. A sexy-sounding new kind of Ensure arrives. "You bring a
> lot to the party!" says her male counterpart.
>
> This cliche' means 'to have many desirable qualities; to contribute
> significantly to someone else's effort or undertaking.'
>
> 1984 Jim Shepard _Flight_  (N.Y.: New American Library) 53 [GB snippet:
> seems real]: "Your friends are my friends," his mother said. His father
> took the spoon from her hand and piled more peas onto his plate. "You
> *bring
> a lot to the party*, you know it?" he said. "I know it," his mother said.
>
> 1985  Tim Carrington  _The Year They Sold Wall Street_ (Boston: Houghton
> Mifflin) 172 [GB snippet: looks real]: Summarizing the Canadian's words,
> Jacobs wrote: " 'I will *bring a lot to the party*. I can help the firm."
>
> And many exx. steadily since.
>
> JL
>
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