Slang "(be) ate up" (= be a bit of a dingbat)?

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Tue, July 19, 2005 2:21 pm, Benjamin Zimmer said:
>
> And from 1992, an example of "ate up with the dumb ass" (mentioned on
> Walter Rader's site):
>
> -----
> http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.humor/msg/c9d4f53b462e944d
> rec.humor, "Funny Similies", Jul 3 1992
> My neighbor Bill (from Texas, natch) says, when he thinks
> his wife Maggie is doing something dumb or silly:
> "she's all ate up with the dumb ass"
> -----

Discussion of the acronymized form (AUWTDA) here:
http://www.gutrumbles.com/archives/000944.php

And here's another form, "...with ugly" (though the sense is slightly
different):

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St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Magazine), Jan 8, 1989, p. 8 (Factiva/Nexis)
Hoffmann paused and looked over his work. He decided he didn't like the
direction the leaf was taking, and he chopped it off in a "smithing
magician," a tiny steel guillotine of sorts invented by another Missouri
blacksmith. "A blacksmith in St. Genevieve always says, 'It was all ate up
with ugly' when something doesn't turn out. I'm starting over here. I'll
do something else."
-----


--Ben Zimmer