hauled off and (was Gone and V-ed)

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:43 AM -0800 11/7/00, Peter A. McGraw wrote:
>--On Tue, Nov 7, 2000 1:29 PM -0600 Jessie Emerson <jessie at SIRSI.COM> wrote:
>
>>
>>  I believe I've only heard "hauled off and" in reference to an act of
>>  violence ("haul off and slap").
>>
>
>Me too.  In my experience, the only thing you can haul off and do is hit
>someone.  I assume its use in the song is a deliberate misuse for comic
>effect or to give a startling new twist to the idea of "love."
>
>Peter Mc.

I acknowledge that "Why Don't You Haul Off and Love Me" is an
exploitation of SOMEthing, but I'm not convinced that violence or
physical effort has to be involved.  This is from an anti-Clinton web
site, emphasis added:

Why They Don't Just Haul Off and Quit
Unvarnished vanity and insufferable arrogance
By John L. Perry
Posted March 11, 1999
...
"Quitting on principle and saying so at the time is a long-lost art
around the White House.
Those folks know now, even if they didn't before, what kind of man
their president is. So,
why don't they just haul off and quit?"

=======
Doesn't sound all that unnatural to me.
There's yet another song, "Haul Off and Kiss Me" (by Caroline
Aiken--another woman!)  "Deliberate misuse again," you say?  Well,
I'm not so sure it's that easily dismissable.  Here's an excerpt from
a piece of WebFiction called "Brothers and Sisters", at
http://northpole.simplenet.com/Jenga/RachelLynn/BroSis.htm.  Emphasis
added.

She smelled good, and there was something definitely feminine about
her, he realized as
she snuggled up against his chest. Immediately he tried to dismiss
the thought. _Here the poor girl is worried to death about the
situation we're in, and I can't seem to get my mind off wanting to
just haul off and kiss her out of the blue. Great, that's probably
exactly what she *doesn't* need at the moment._

--larry
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