"cleaned his clock" Antedating to 1946

[Dave Wilton]

The last citation, the one from railroad jargon, is in HDAS.


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
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Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2006 1:08 PM
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Subject: Re: "cleaned his clock" Antedating to 1946

>>From N'archive:

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_Reno Evening Gazette_, 18 Sep. 1942: p. 12: <<"Who knows?" Lobert said
yesterday, eager for the Brooklyn game. "Maybe we'll clean their
clocks.">>

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_Cook County Herald_, 6 May 1930: p. 1:

[Tomatoes versus citrus fruits]

<<But the science boys now say that the vitamines in the tomato can clean
the clock of any of the others so highly recommended and not half tried.>>

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_Trenton Evening Times_, 28 July 1908: p. 11:

<<It took the Thistles just one inning to clean the clocks of the Times
boys.>>

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And from ProQuest: a different usage, but MAYBE ancestral ("clean the
clock" = "halt abruptly" or so):

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_The Bookman_ 69(5), July 1929: p. 524:

Grover Jones, "Railroad Lingo":

<<Should the engineer "wipe the gauge" or "clean the clock", it means that
he has brought the train to a sudden stop by setting the air brakes.>>

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Bunch of other railroad lingo in this last piece.

-- Doug Wilson

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