(RH)HDAS and the long haul

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:26 PM -0500 11/7/00, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>George Thompson wrote:
>>
>>  HDAS (I happily follow the lead of Jesse Sheidlower in dropping the
>>  initials of the infamous publishing house formerly associated with
>>  this dictionary)
>
>Longterm ADS-L members, or those using the archives, will know that I
>have always referred to the _Random House Historical Dictionary
>of American Slang_ as the HDAS. Also, Random House is still associated
>with it.
>
Speaking of which, as soon as I got home I checked my trusty copy of
Volume II and found a nice antedate for that "Haul Off and Kiss Me"
song:

       "Then Lily hauls off and gives me a big kiss."  --Damon Runyan,
in Collier's, 1930

There's also (in addition to the predictable cases of hauling off and
slapping, taking a sock at, driving teeth in, etc.) a 1918 instance
of someone hauling off and stretching the long tall bird on the
floor, a 1923 cite of someone who "throws up his job, hauls off, and
enlists", and even--from Zora Neale Hurston, the foremother of
"doodly-squat"--this lovely sentence from a 1942 piece in the
American Mercury:

       "We hauled off and went to church last Sunday."

As far as I know, none of these writers are Oregonians, so the
Pacific Northwest is still safe from non-violent haul-offs.

larry
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