verbing in the Stanford Chaparral

[Wilson Gray]

It could be that Shakespeare was writing euphemistically in order to
avoid the equivalent of current "Shit on it!" or some such.

-Wilson

On 4/16/07, Michael H Covarrubias <mcovarru at purdue.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Michael H Covarrubias <mcovarru at PURDUE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: verbing in the Stanford Chaparral
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> My guess would be that Ms McCurdy remembers the line from Hamlet's soliloquy in
> I.ii: "Fie on't, ah fie!"
>
> Reading 'on' as a preposition there it would make sense to think that Hamlet is
> uttering some sort of an imperative. Even if misguided it's an understandable
> reading no?
>
> In fact I force myself into some odd positions trying to read "on't" as "about
> it" or "in regards to that" as would be necessary if reading "fie" as a cry of
> disgust in that line.
>
> Michael
>
> Quoting "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>:
> >
> > (the Stanford Chaparral is the student humor magazine)
> >
> > from vol. CVIII no. 3, p. 8, "A Gentleman's Club" (by Meghan
> > McCurdy), the verbing of an interjection:
> >
> > [about a place called A Gentleman's Club]  It pains me even now to
> > take it down, but rest assured that in the low grunts of lesser
> > humanity I found no conversation worth having, no music worth
> > listening to, and in the unnecessary and gratuitous display of base
> > and vile flesh no companionship worth pursuing.  I fie upon it.
> >
> > [the OED takes "fie" back to a sound of disgust]
> >
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>    English Language & Linguistics
>    Purdue University
>    mcovarru at purdue.edu
>
>    web.ics.purdue.edu/~mcovarru
>   <http://wishydig.blogspot.com>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
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All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                                      -Sam'l Clemens

"Experience" is the ability to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

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