killed to death

[Thomas Paikeday]

"Killed  to death" seems to have a finality to it whereas "kill" as in "to
kill an ad, ball, bill, desire, engine, to kill time" etc. do not. I first
noticed it in a commercial about a bug killer (I forget the brand name) with
the slogan "kills bugs dead."  Some of the 57,900 references you get from
googling "killed to death" are interesting.

Thomas M. Paikeday, lexicographer.

On Sun, Apr 20, 2008 at 12:58 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: killed to death
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Well, you know what they used to say:
>
> "An Irishman is a nigger turned inside out."
>
> In these more modern times, the saying has become, in California, at
> least:
>
> "A Mexican is a nigger with his brains blown out."
>
> -Wilson
>
> On Sun, Apr 20, 2008 at 12:41 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> >  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >  Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> >
> > Subject:      Re: killed to death
> >
>  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> > At 4/20/2008 11:01 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >  >Actually, a blast from the past. See OED _kill_, 2c, with exx. from
> >  >1362 and ca1400.
> >
> >  Interesting.  However, some of the more recent (1670 and following)
> >  OED examples seem like intensifiers, where the writer is using the
> >  phrase for effect.  But that hardly seems necessary in the Bullock
> quote.
> >
> >
> >
> >  >   Plus:
> >  >
> >  >   1858 _The British Millennial Harbinger_ XI (3rd Ser.) (Nov. 1)
> >  > 540: Bro. Wallis gets scratched by a stray shot; and he so riddles
> >  > his dummies, that our trans-channel friends [in Ireland] might
> >  > pronounce them "kilt to death."
> >  >
> >  >   Google Books has two or three more of these, all seemingly Irish.
> >
> >  Is the Web author Irish also?  I hate to say anything negative about
> >  the Irish, but ... Hawthorne comments about a report of an incident
> >  in which an Irishman cut off his own head with a scythe, "we may at
> >  least allow, that if any man could cut off his own head, it would
> >  certainly be an Irishman."  (This may not be Hawthorne's own
> >  conclusion, but a paraphrase from his source.)
> >
> >  Joel
> >
> >
> >
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> >  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> 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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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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