"Vacate,' v = "vacation," v?

[Wilson Gray]

My goodness, Ben! Isn't there anything new under the sun?! Good eye, though.

-Wilson


On 2/3/06, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Vacate,' v = "vacation," v?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 2/3/06, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> > Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> > >
> > > Heard in passing (black male ca.25 years old):
> > >
> > > "I got laid off, so I though that I would just vacate for a while."
> >
> > Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > A little voice tells me he meant "go away" for a while.  When a place is
> > > vacated, the people go away.
> >
> > If there's a semantic shift from trans. 'empty (a place)'  to intrans.
> > 'leave (from a place)', perhaps it's analogized from the double sense
> > of "evacuate" (cf. also "clear out").
>
> Or maybe it's just a continuation of OED sense 4c:
>
> -----
> U.S. To give up work for a time; to take a holiday or vacation.
> 1836 Knickerbocker VII. 15 Ned and I were vacating..at his father's
> charming residence. 1885 Advance (Chicago) 23 July 476 One thing he [a
> Chinaman] can never learn, and that is how to vacate.
> -----
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
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