wails vs. whales

[Wilson Gray]

On Sep 27, 2004, at 3:15 PM, James Smith wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       James Smith <jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: wails vs. whales
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> Seems to me "charging, kicks ass, whales a while" go
> together very well ...making noise, kicking up a
> rucus, causing trouble or a disturbance.  The odd
> thing about this is, I say /hwal/ for the mammel, but
> /wal/ for the verb meaning "To strike or hit
> repeatedly and forcefully; thrash...attack
> vehemently":  before this thread, I'd never looked up
> this use of "whale" in a dictionary and was using the
> word, or thought I was using the word, "wail" in
> phrases such as "He really whaled (wailed) on me."

Damn! Would you believe that, until I read your post, it had never
occurred to me that the "whale" in that expression has to be the verb,
"whale," meaning "beat, strike," and not some strange, deep, abstruse,
semantically-inverted verbalization of the noun, "whale," in the
Moby-Dick sense. I once was blind, but now I see! Yours is a brilliant
insight!
Absolutely brilliant! I'd been wondering about the way that that
expression had come into being for nearly sixty years.

Thank you!
-Wilson Gray

>
>
>
>
> --- Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
>
>
>
>>>>  This use of the phraseology, "I'm in sharp," is
>>>> together, hip, way out, charging, kicks ass,
>> whales a while,
>>>> etc., and is very interesting.
>>>
>>> "whales a while"??  Is this a typo?  I would have
>> expected "wail a
>>> while",
>>> as
>>> in "Jump Jive and Wail"
>>>
> ....
>>
>> I have no reason to think that this "whale," an
>> ad-hoc spelling, in any
>> case, is related to standard "whale."
>>
>>
>> -Wilson Gray
>>
>
>
> =====
> James D. SMITH                 |If history teaches anything
> South SLC, UT                  |it is that we will be sued
> jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com     |whether we act quickly and decisively
>                                |or slowly and cautiously.
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