uptight redux (was Re: ADS-L Digest - 2 Apr 2006 to 3 Apr 2006 (#2006-94))

[Wilson Gray]

I'm with Ben on this one. Methinks the Godfather is telling the woman
that he feels a little unsure of himself around her because she is
just too fine. OTOH, there was a time when I used to dance. There was
a time when I used to prance. There was a dance they called the
"joik." Now, everybody re-lax! And watch me woik!

Actually, it was the Godfather who said that, of course. ;-) What I
was going to say is that there was definitely a time when "up tight"
did have both a good and a bad reference aand you had to have a
context to tell you which reference was meant, as in Jim's example.

-Wilson

On 4/4/06, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      uptight redux (was Re: ADS-L Digest - 2 Apr 2006 to 3 Apr 2006
>               (#2006-94))
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> James Landau wrote:
> >
> > In Basic Training (1969) I frequently heard the Drill Instructors use
> > the phrase "your shit is uptight", used as a compliment to a trainee who
> > did something right.
> >
> > I have never heard this expression elsewhere.
>
> Jonathan LIghter wrote:
> >
> > "Uptight" frequently means/ meant "terrific" in AAVE.  Like when James Brown
> > sang, "Uptight and outta sight!"
>
> Close. In "Out of Sight" (1964) James Brown sang:
>
>   You got a shapely figure, mama,
>   That's keepin' me uptight.
>   You got a shapely figure, mama,
>   A-keep me uptight.
>   You're too much!
>   You know you're out of sight.
>
> I'd be interested in Wilson's take on this, but to me this sounds like
> the sense of "uptight" meaning 'in a state of nervousness or anxiety,
> worked up'. It's not clearly approbative as in Stevie Wonder's
> "Uptight" from 1966 ("Everything is alright, uptight, out of sight"),
> which perhaps Jonathan was thinking of (we've discussed that song on a
> few occasions).
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
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