Conot's "Fire"

[Wilson Gray]

Jon, I'm impressed that, judging by HDAS, that you've read Conot's
_Rivers of Fire_ without buying into his lying explication of the
phrase, "Burn, baby! Burn!" However, the use of the phrase as a slogan
is real, so I was mildly disappointed not to find it under the rubric,
"In phrases."

OTOH, I was pleasantly surprised to see that "to infect with a
venereal disease" as the first definition of the verb "burn" as a
slang term, since it correlates with my own experience of the word.
That is, when I first heard "burn" used as slang, its meaning was the
same as theprimary one in HDAS. As an obvious natural development, a
person infected with VD was said to be "hot." As a consequence, the
current general use of "hot" as a compliment to a person is something
that I still can't quite get ready for, though, even in my day,
referring to a chick as a "hot piece" or "hot stuff" or noting that a
chick had a "hot ass," i.e. a "fine behind," was positive.

-Wilson