know the score

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Sep 11, 2004, at 5:59 PM, i wrote:

> ... we're all agreed on what the
> expression now means, and either history can be rationalized; the
> question is whether there's any evidence.

now that gerald cohen has supplied a literal occurrence of "know the
score" with the musical noun "score" from 1887 and michael quinion has
supplied a literal occurrence of "know the score" with the game-playing
noun "score" from 1921, let me point out that the exercise here is
*not* to determine whether the musical "score" or "game-playing "score"
is older; the exercise is to discover early *figurative* uses of "know
the score" and see whether the context of these occurrences suggests
one or another of the nouns "score" as the source of the figure.

OED2 has other possible sources: a notch in account keeping (from
1460), then a mark for recording points in a game (from 1680); a record
of accounts kept by tallies (from 1400), then an amount of debt in a
score (in this sense).  the game-playing "score" (from 1742) presumably
developed from the first of these.  meanwhile, OED2 has musical "score"
from 1702, and the musical and game-playing senses continue to be
current to modern times.  the relevant figurative uses (which i'd
somehow missed in looking at OED2) begin with "know the score" in 1938,
in a decidedly colloquial definition of "dope" as "a guy who doesn't
know the score", and continue with locutions that are not compatible
with musical "score": "realize/know/ask what the score is" and "tell
someone the score".

figurative "know the score" appears in several (though not all) idiom
dictionaries, which generally identify it as informal or colloquial.
jonathon green's Cassell's Dictionary of Slang has it, identified as
"sporting imagery".  jonathan lighter's HDAS doesn't have a listing
under "know" -- either because the expression will appear under "score"
or because it doesn't count as slang.

my own guess (and green's) that the source is the game-playing "score"
probably comes from the colloquial character of the figurative "score"
expressions; sports is more likely than musical performance to serve as
a source of colloquial expressions.  but only *more* likely.  hence the
value of the OED2's early figurative cites, most of which aren't easy
to square with musical "score".

still... the 1938 definition of "dope" presupposes that "know the
score" was already current.  earlier occurrences of figurative "score"
that point to one source or the other would be good -- for instance,
"what's the score?" 'what's going on?', pointing to a game-playing
origin.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)