Heard on the judges

[Wilson Gray]

Judge Mathis, a black native of Detroit, after being startled, says:

"That [start] was real! I wasn't putting on!"

DARE has _to put on_ only as "To act consciously, [to] show off."

I'm not familiar with the meaning, "to show off," at all. However,
I've been familiar with the term as Judge Mathis used it, i.e. "to
pretend, to fake," since I've been able to understand language. "To
act consciously" is probably broad enough, IMO, to include "to
pretend, to fake." I've also heard it used by other black Texans to
mean "to carry on, to go on" as in "[the baby was] crying and putting
on," though no one in my family uses it that way.

For me, "to put *someone* on," in whatever meaning, is hippiespeak
syntax of which I have only passive knowledge.

-Wilson
--
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

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