how to classify? ("I don't want to beat it with a dead horse.")

[Wilson Gray]

like a rented, mixed-race step-mule

Heard "... beat him like a racially-mixed stepchild" on some random, TV sitcom.

Seemed more likely to have been invented by a writer than real, so I
didn't bother to remember any details. But, of course...

Youneverknow.

-Wilson

On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 11:19 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: how to classify? ("I don't want to beat it with a dead
>              horse.")
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 10:56 AM -0400 6/18/10, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>>"Beat it with a stick"?
>>
>>DanG
>
> like a rented red-headed step-mule
>
> LH
>
>>
>>On 6/18/2010 10:41 AM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:
>>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>-----------------------
>>>Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>Poster:       "Cohen, Gerald Leonard"<gcohen at MST.EDU>
>>>Subject:      Re: how to classify? ("I don't want to beat it with a dead
>>>                horse.")
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>      In a sort of mental blender, the speaker made a jumble of
>>>three phrases, although only two are clear to me: (1) "I don't want
>>>to beat a dead horse," and  (2) "I don't want to beat it to death."
>>>   For the third phrase (to account for "with") a possibility would
>>>be something like: "I don't want to deal with this topic anymore."
>>>But that's just a guess.
>>>
>>>Gerald Cohen
>>>
>>>________________________________
>>>
>>>Message from James A. Landau,  Fri 6/18/2010 7:15 AM:
>>>
>>>Heard in the lab:
>>>
>>>"I don't want to beat it with a dead horse"
>>>
>>>How do we classify this?
>>>
>>><snip>
>>>
>>>       - Jim Landau
>>>
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>>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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>



--
-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.
–Mark Twain

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