"kippie" - Buster Keaton

Douglas G. Wilson douglas at NB.NET
Sat Jan 13 03:49:21 UTC 2007


>"It got so that I didn't care if school kept or not."

This is an old expression (from 1855 at a glance at N'archive): "not care
whether school keeps or not" means "not care about anything at all".

"School keeps" = "school continues"/"school remains in session". This is
the opposite of "school lets out", I think.

Presumably every school child was imagined to be intensely interested in
when/whether school would let out, so not to care about this was considered
the extreme of apathy ... at least that's how I imagine it.

There is also "whether school keeps or not" = "no matter what happens".

Lots of examples can be Googled.

-- Doug Wilson


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