On the Lam, #2 (trying again without diacriticals)

[Sam Clements]

Wouldn't it make more sense to cite the 6th and 7th century Irish
manuscripts, rather than a 1950 book?  Or am I missing something.

Sam Clements


----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Cassidy" <DanCas1 at AOL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, December 12, 2004 11:48 PM
Subject: On the Lam, #2 (trying again without diacriticals)




On the lam.

Lam.
Leim, also spelled Leum,
To jump. To fly out. To leap.

Lam: To flee; to jump bail or parole.
(Goldin & O’Leary, Dictionary of American Underworld  Lingo, NY, 1950, p.
121.


ERIE: “...these guys I put the bite on is dead wrong G’s, and they  expect
to be paid back Tuesday, or else I’m outa luck, and have to take it on  the
lam, or I’ll get beat up and maybe sent to the hospital.”  (Hughie, p. 289)


Lam: n. Slang. On the run, hurried escape, as in take it on  the lam or on
the lam. 1897, from the verb meaning of run away. Origin  unknown. (The
Barnhart
Dictionary of Etymology, pp. 573-574).

It is ironic that these so-called underworld “slang" terms  were the
literate
Irish words of  6th and 7th century manuscripts  seven hundred years before
Geoffrey Chaucer had his first spelling lesson.

Irish is the first literate vernacular tongue in Europe.


Daniel Cassidy
The Irish Studies Program
New College of California
San Francisco