fag out

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Apr 7, 2007, at 5:10 PM, Alison Murie wrote:

> Jonathan writes:
>
>> Intrans. "fag out" (to become wearied to exhaustion) is not
>> commonly used
>> by U.S. speakers in my experience, but undergraduates frequently
>> report it
>> as "slang," presumably because they've read it somewhere in an
>> English
>> class.  Trans. "fag (out)" (to weary to exhuastion) and adj. "fagged"
>> (exhausted) may be more common, but none are typical.
> ~~~~~~~~
> "Fagged out" has been unambiguously "dead tired" nearly all my
> life, though
> I don't hear it much any more.  It co-existed with "faggot" without
> causing
> confusion  (or sniggering,  that I knew of) or any sense of double
> entendre
> when I was growing up.  I would still use it without thinking twice.

yes, i don't think people connect these.

it now occurs to me that dictionaries should have a subentry for
"fagged (out)", which is, like "tired", "exhausted", etc. in similar
contexts, an adjective and not the passive of a transitive verb.

arnold

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