to run [something] into the ground

[George Thompson]

Well.

I had searched "run" and "ground" as part of the lemma, and then searched for them in quotations.  The first search turned up nothing, and the second seemed to give me all quotations with EITHER "run" OR "ground".  One of those days, no doubt.

Thanks.

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com>
Date: Saturday, March 21, 2009 10:37 pm
Subject: Re: to run [something] into the ground
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

> I went to OED online and searched full text for "run into the ground".
>
> run, v.
> B.I.42.
>
>  e. run (a thing) into the ground, to carry to excess, to overdo; to exhaust
> or defeat by constant pursuit or pressure; to destroy by excessive use.
> orig. U.S.
>
> 1836 W. T. PORTER in Spirit of Times 9 July 162/1 It's no use to run the
> thing into the ground. a1859 in Bartlett Dict. Amer. (ed. 2) 374 The
> advocates of temperance have run it into the ground by their extreme
> measures. 1884 L. GRONLUND Co-oper. Commw. iii. 74 After having run this
> Social ‘Order’ into the ground, it will be supplanted by a new principle.
> 1947 J. STEINBECK Wayward Bus viii. 135 Well, start feeling good,
> then, and
> don't run it into the ground. Nobody likes sick people very long. 1955
> Times
> 3 Aug. 3/7 Close marking, hard tackling, and shrewd tactical kicking,
> until
> the opposition has been ‘run into the ground’. 1977 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 31
> Mar.
> 21/1 Crossman during his brief tenure as editor..just about ran the paper
> into the ground.
>
> Mark Mandel
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 10:07 PM, George Thompson
> <george.thompson at nyu.edu>wrote:
>
> > The OED doesn't seem to have this expression.  It's at least 160
> years old.
> >
> > This is from an editorial on the great improvements made in the newspaper
> > business in the last 25 years.
> >
> > The business of special expressing, of issuing extras or second,
> third and
> > fourth editions, were no more dreamed of then than the possibility of
> > publishing on the 16th, at New York, a debate in Parliament of the
> 3rd of
> > any given month.  And we might go on to run the comparison, as they
> say in
> > the South, "into the ground."  But, to make an end, we may say that
> nothing
> > can be more unlike, in every respect, than the newspaper press of the
> > present time, and the newspaper press of even a quarter of a century
> ago.
> >        New York Morning Express, February 5, 1846, p. 2, col. 2
> >
> > GAT
> >
> > George A. Thompson
> > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> > Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org