"keep a tight eye on"

[Joel S. Berson]

A parallel to tight kept eyes and tight listening ears:  "have a
look" & have a listen" (TV news announcers).

Joel

At 3/13/2010 05:50 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Means to "watch constantly or continually."  Covered, I suppose, by OED
>_tight_, def. 5, but the dictionary has no record of the phrase, which gets
>43,000 Googlits and Google Book hits back to 1834.
>
>I just heard it on VH1's _Sober House with Dr. Drew Pinsky_.  A California
>thing?
>
>(Cf. John Wayne: "Now listen up, and listen tight."   Also in, e.g.,
>Alcott's _Little Men_.)
>
>
>
>JL
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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