"Turn on"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Never heard of "turn back."  Pei's comments on American slang are often unreliable.

JL

Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: "Turn on"
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Just a couple of observations that may or may not be of any interest
and, in any case, may be old news.

When the term, "turn on," became hip in St. Louis in the '50's, the
negative had the form, "turn back," and not "turn off," which
continued to mean "turn off."

Mario Pei, either in The Story of Language (1965) or in The Story of
the English Language (1967), states that "turn (someone) on" had, among
other meanings, the meaning, "light a cigarette (for someone)."

"Do you turn on?" is a way of inviting someone to join in smoking a
joint.

-Wilson Gray


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