New movie

[Jonathan Lighter]

Wilson, HDAS has "break bad" from 1972 with the definition, "[of persons] to become aggressive or angry." (After fifteen years, this def. now seems a bit bland to me. Maybe it needs an adverb like "extremely" and the addition of "unruly, disorderly, etc.")  Correct me if I'm wrong.

  To "break" can also mean "(of circumstances) to go or become," thus "break bad" can also mean "to go wrong, become difficult, dangerous, etc."  But that would be less usual, I think.

  "Break nasty" seems to partake of both nuances. You'll be amazed when I say I 've never encountered it before.

  JL


Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: New movie
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Jon, have you noticed the ads for the new movie titled, "Breaking
Bad"? My intuition is that the desire for alliteration dissuaded the
producers from the use of the cooler and the goner, "Breaking Nasty."
;-)

-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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