"dropped on" (Non-Standard conjoined subject noun phrases)

[Robin Hamilton]

I'll see if I can get to a text that might be dateable.  Be nice to be able
to kick Vaux out of the top spot.  (James Hardy "thrice transported" Vaux is
not one of my favourite people.)

The HDAS entry could perhaps be modified to *1809 -- while the Memoirs
aren't published till 1812, Vaux (assuming you believe him) says that he
included the slang glossary found there in a letter to the Governor of New
South Wales in 1809.

[I think -- I'm working from memory above, but I could firm up the dates,
etc., at least to do with Vaux, if Jon would find this useful.]

Robin

----- Original Message -----
From: "George Thompson" <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 9:56 PM
Subject: "dropped on" (Non-Standard conjoined subject noun phrases)


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Subject:      "dropped on" (Non-Standard conjoined subject noun phrases)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In a message dated February 24, 2010, Robin Hamilton quotes a poaching
> ballad called "Hares in the Old Plantation," evidently from the late 18th
> C:
> Me and five more went out one night into Squire Duncan's park
>            To see if we could catch some game, the night it being dark
>            But to our great misfortune we got dropped on with speed
>            And they took us off to Warwick gaol which made our hearts to
> bleed
>
> This seems to be HDAS's 4a, "to become aware of, to discover, const. with
> to or on".  The earliest citation for this sense in HADS is 1812, from
> Vaux' Memoirs.
> HDAS's various senses referring to being arrested, (under #5), all date
> from the very early 20th C.
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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