V Adj 'V in a Adj way'

[Jonathan Lighter]

Not verbatim, but _West Side Story_ has

  X: "I'm gonna bust !"

  Y: "Bust cool !"

  A friend and I have been advising each other to "bust cool" in times of stress for close to 30 years.

  JL

"Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Arnold M. Zwicky"
Subject: V Adj 'V in a Adj way'
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parallel to "meet cute" and some others we've looked at, here's
"break funny", from Steven Johnson's "The Long Zoom" (NYT Magazine,
10/8/06, p. 55):

[about a computer game]

Hecker pulled up a new lineup to demonstrate a clapping animation
that included a creature whose cranium is so inconveniently located
that clapping forces him to slap both his hands against the side of
his head. It looked like slapstick comedy of the highest order --
vaudeville meets "Monsters, Inc."

"Our philosophy is," Bradshaw said, "if it's going to break, it
should break funny."

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