Heard on The Judges: "ripping and running"

[Wilson Gray]

Spoken by a Latin-American African-American woman [Sheila Gonzalez]
from Buffalo, NY, speaking of bad son:

"He was fifteen! I couldn't _rip an' run_ behin' him!"


I've never heard this phrase used in any form except "rippin(g) and
runnin(g)" before. I would have expected, "I couldn't *be* _rippin'
an' runnin'_ behind him!"

-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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