"You can't be serious" (June 22, 1981)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 23:44:00 EST, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

>It's "You can't be serious," not "You cannot be serious." You cannot always
>get what you want.
>
[snip]
>
>22 June 1981, New York Post, pg. 53, col. 3:
[...]
>"You can't be serious," McEnroe shrieked at the umpire. "You are an
>incompetent fool, an offense against the world."
>...
>...
>...
>23 June 1981, New York Daily News, pg. 52, col. 3:
>Two game later another call went against McEnroe. "You can't be serious,"
>McEnroe shrieked at the umpires. "You are an incompetent fool, an offense
>against the world."

Actually, I think he said both -- according to various sources the
outburst went: "You can't be serious, man... You canNOT be serious!"

Here's one rendition of the complete tantrum:

    http://www.bbc.tv/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A640081
    Mac: The ball... chalk came up off of the ball... (walks toward
    umpire's chair)
    Umpire: It was a bit of chalk spread Mr McEnroe, that was a good call.
    Mac: Excuse me?
    Umpire: It was a good call...
    Mac: You can't be serious man; you CANNOT BE SERIOUS! That ball was
    on the line! Chalk flew up! (Waves his arms to demonstrate.) It was
    clearly in! How can you POSSIBLY call that out?!? (Audience starts to
    clap - possibly in appreciation for this bit of entertainment.) How
    can you even miss?!? Now he's walking over, and everyone knows it's
    in in this whole stadium. And you call that out?!? Explain that to me!

You can hear "You cannot be serious! That ball was on the line! Chalk flew
up!" via the audio link I provided earlier, accessible from this page:

http://simplythebest.net/sounds/other_formats/Sun_Audio/miscellaneous_au.html


--Ben Zimmer