"Oil as spiritous drink? (UNCLASSIFIED)

Mon May 19 21:49:16 UTC 2008

Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

Quotes from Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd, as found at wikipedia:

"I am The Can, and I am going to come right at you with my best shit,
and if you can hit it, I want to see how far Bo Jackson can hit The Oil
Can."
Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd, Boston Red Sox Pitcher, to Bo Jackson before
Jackson hit his first pitch over the 71-foot high score board in
straight away center field at Fenway Park. (The ball landed 515 feet
from home plate).

"That's what they get for building a park on the ocean." --Boyd, after a
1986 Red Sox-Indians game at Cleveland Municipal Stadium (on the shore
of Lake Erie) was postponed due to fog. Resource: 07/13/2004 article by
Jeff Sullivan of The Pawtucket (RI) Times.

"You've got to do what's good for The Can." --Boyd, responding to
criticism of his decision to try to play Major League Baseball as a scab
during the 1994-95 strike.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Wilson Gray
> Sent: Monday, May 19, 2008 3:16 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: "Oil as spiritous drink?
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Oil as spiritous drink?
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------
>
> The Red Sox once had a pitcher known to the bruthaz - and to
> everyone else, really - as "Oil Can," because of his
> propensity for getting oiled. The drinking, which moved a
> black newspaper to refer to him as "The Brother From Another
> Planet" as a consequence of his drunken antics on the mound,
> eventually destroyed his career.
>
> -Wilson
>
> On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 1:59 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: "Oil as spiritous drink?
> >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > ---------
> >
> > HDAS has "the joyful" meaning spiritous drink from 1835,
> and topselling hymnsmith Isaac Watts has a metaphorical
> "joyful oil" from at least 1769:
> >
> >  1769 Isaac Watts _The Psalms of David Imitated in the
> Language of the New Testament_ (ed. 22)  (London: T. Longman,
> C. & R. Ware, et al.) 100: Thy Father and thy God, / Hath,
> without measure, shed / His Spirit like a joyful oil / T'
> anoint thy sacred head.
> >
> >  So you get "joyful oil" = "the joyful" by 1900:
> >
> >  1900 _Annual Report of the Indiana State Board of
> Agriculture_  (Indianapolis: I.S.B.A.) 1042: He will tie his
> horse to the hitch rack and run to the nearest fire, and,
> perhaps, go to a joint where he will take a nip of joyful oil
> to drive out the cold.
> >
> >  More expressive than common.  Good find, Joel.
> >
> >  JL
> >
> > Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: Wilson Gray
> > Subject: Re: "Oil as spiritous drink?
> >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > ---------
> >
> > I hate when that happens! Sorry about that, Joel. I should
> simply have
> > given you the info and left out the extra stuff, such as I'm
> > continuing to add, even as we speak.
> >
> > The correct answer is: HDAS appears to have 1917 for simple
> "oil" as a
> > spiritous drink. But HDAS's oldest, clearly-attested cite
> is only from
> > 1918. It appears to me that you have an antedating, if you have a
> > clear 1917. But we - you and I - won't know till Jon
> bringeth down the
> > tablets in his response.
> >
> > -Wilson
> >
> > On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 8:47 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >> Sender: American Dialect Society
> >> Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
> >> Subject: Re: "Oil as spiritous drink?
> >>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> ----------
> >>
> >> Yes I mean "alcoholic beverage" (is that different from "spiritous
> >> drink? :-) ) -- but in the bare, without any modifier.
> >>
> >> The quote is:
> >>
> >> oh boss
> >> you ask too much of us we have no flair for toil we d rather daily
> >> dally thus-imbibing joyful oil you can t expect a man to
> souse and do
> >> work for your business house
> >>
> >> The date is November 14, 1917.
> >>
> >> [The hyphen probably is intended to be an em-dash; this
> was written
> >> on a manual typewriter, without that character, and two extra
> >> head-butts would not have been appreciated by Archy.]
> >>
> >> I see that OED3 has a draft revision March 2008, for "oil
> n.1", with
> >> "C2. In extended use {dag}d. Strong drink, as oil of
> barley, oil of
> >> malt. Cf. sense 5. Obs.", latest citation 1881, and all quotations
> >> are of the form "oil of ". I observe:
> >>
> >> There are no citations of just plain "oil" (C is "Combinations and
> >> phrasal collocations", of course).
> >>
> >> Which was not obsolete at least as of 1917; and I'll bet it can be
> >> found much later.
> >>
> >> The reference to sense 5 is mysterious; that's "5. In pl.
> The sector
> >> of the commodities or stock market represented by oil or
> oils (now,
> >> esp. petroleum); shares in an oil or petroleum company." (?)
> >>
> >> Joel
> >>
> >> At 5/17/2008 12:26 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >>>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> >>>Content-Disposition: inline
> >>>
> >>>You mean "oil" as in "ignorant-oil" = alcoholic beverage?
> HDAS has 1917.
> >>>
> >>>-Wilson
> >>>
> >>>On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 10:50 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>> -----------------------
> >>> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> >>> > Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
> >>> > Subject: "Oil as spiritous drink?
> >>> >
> >>>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> -----------
> >>> >
> >>> > When does "oil" as spiritous drink (by itself, not as "oil of
> >>> > barley", etc.) appear? I couldn't locate this sense in OED2.
> >>> >
> >>> > Joel
> >>> >
> >>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> > 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
> >>>
> >>>------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> 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
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > 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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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