"Ripping and running"

[Jonathan Lighter]

I do have a few cites for "ripping and running," but only beginning with Agar's book.  In general it means "tearin' up the pea patch,"  (cf. Mark Twain's usage of the similar "rip and tear"), but nowadays it can also mean doing snatch and grab thefts and running away. I suppose the rip in "Let 'er rip" is vaguely related to the old-time usage.

  Once again, Wilson, your capacious memory  has expanded our knowledge. Mine, anyway.

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: "Ripping and running"
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Jon,

Do you have this in HDAS? I've always considered it to be a
regionalism rather than slang, since my good, Krishtan,
non-slang-using grandparents used to say it. But it's not in DARE.
However, it is in Google as the title of a song: "Rippin' an'
Runnin'," by Shirley Scott; and as a book title: "Ripping and
Running," by Michael Agar. (I own this book and it has a brief
appendix of slang terms relating to the use of heroin or "harron," the
hip pronunciation of today.} Google also has it in various obscure
slang uses that have no relation at all to my grandmother's use of it
to my brother and me: "Y'all stop all that rippin' an' runnin' befo'
y'all be done got yo' clothes all dirty!"

If you do have it, do you have a definition for it?

-Wilson



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