"djinn up"

[Peter A. McGraw]

Hmm...I'm hesitant to mention this, because it seems somewhat far-fetched,
but there's at least a conceivable link via this meaning to Arnold's
original "ginger" idea.  I'm not sure what the point of the practice was,
or is, but "gingering" a horse means smearing some concoction, of which
ginger is presumably the main ingredient, into the horse's rectum to make
it prance and step lively.  I heard only "gingering", never "gingering up"
for this, but I think the only time I heard it at all was when someone told
me about the practice and explained it, so for all I know it might have
been used at least sometimes with "up".

Peter

--On Tuesday, July 19, 2005 2:36 PM -0700 "Arnold M. Zwicky"
<zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU> wrote:

>> ... [1] DARE has "gin up" 'stir up, get something going', and OED2 has
>> something similar, marked as U.S. slang.
>
> actually, the OED has a more specialized cite, involving the dummy
> object "her", with ambient reference:
>
> -----
> U.S. slang. to gin her up: to work things up, to make things ‘hum’,
> to work hard.
>
>    1887 F. FRANCIS Jr. Saddle & Mocassin vii. 124 The Apaches were
> out to beat hell..And they were ginning her up, and making things a
> bit lively, that's a fact!
> -----



***************************************************************************
Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ****************************