"laid" and other random BE slang in the HDAS

[Wilson Gray]

On Jul 26, 2004, at 7:13 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "laid" and other random BE slang in the HDAS
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> Doug,
>
> I never thought of the rough phonetic similarity between "come the
> (old soldier)" and "cut the (fool)."
>
> It may be entirely coincidental, but "come the" had early 19th C.
> currency in the US and may have mutated into (and been replaced by,
> where it survived) by "cut the."
>
> It is hard to imagine any evidence that would settle this one way or
> the other.
>
> JL
>
> "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson"
> Subject: Re: "laid" and other random BE slang in the HDAS
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> --------
>
>> "Slave" = ordinary job has been around for a while, but I have not
>> encountered it with "cut." Any related terms?
>
> Is "cut the X" comparable to "come the X" or "play the X" meaning "act
> like/as the X"?
>
> E.g., in HDAS: "come the old soldier", "come the possum" = "play
> possum".
>
> And I THINK I've encountered all of these, although I may misremember:
> "cut
> the fool" ?= "play the fool" ?= "come the fool". Google does appear to
> show
> some examples.

FWIW, I, too, find something familiar about "cut the fool" = "play the
fool," but as something that I may have read somewhere, not as
something that I've heard spoken. In any case, though, "cut the slave"
means merely "to work at any kind of ordinary, square, day job," with
no implication that the person is in any sense acting as a slave. Both
a janitor and a CEO cut the slave.

-Wilson Gray

>
> Maybe "cut" can be used with more-or-less arbitrary X, as "come" and
> "play"
> can?
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>
>
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