beat it up

[Wilson Gray]

"Knock one off"? I don't know that one. "Sheltered life," you claim? Yeah.
Right.

-Wilson

On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 9:07 PM, 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: beat it up
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 5:25 PM -0400 3/18/10, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >I've been familiar with _knock it out_
>
> cf. _knock one off_
>
> >  since the '40's, but _beat it up_ is
> >new to me.
>
> to me too, but I've led a sheltered life.
>
> LH
>
> >
> >On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 1:08 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com
> >wrote:
> >
> >>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>  -----------------------
> >>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  Poster:       victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> >>  Subject:      beat it up
> >>
> >>
>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>  Not one I heard before. From TPM and AJC, reporting on the teaching
> >>  license suspension of one of the gubernatorial candidates in GA:
> >>
> >>  > ·       Student 1 indicated that educator told her he wanted to take
> her
> >>  home and "beat it up" (i.e. have sex).
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AfKEK8-LWmzhZGNmZDk0bTNfMjRkc3p3N2ZkNA&hl=en&pli=1
> >>
> >>  Of course, there are plenty of other similar references I have never
> >>  heard. I've heard a similar expression before, but the antecedent of
> >>  "it" wasa lower primate.
> >>
> >>
> >>  Another one, from the same report, that had me puzzled:
> >>
> >>  > ·       Student 15 stated that the educator had told her that he
> could
> >>  see her cleavage. The educator had once commented that he could see
> "stuff"
> >>  and she needed to pull her skirt down. The educator had once told her,
> as it
> >>  pertained to how she dressed, that she was going to get him fired.
> >>
> >>  I am wondering who made the choice of the word "cleavage"--the
> >>  subject, the student or the investigator. And there is the underlying
> >>  question whether the first two sentences refer to the same incident.
> >>  If they do not, there is no word choice issue.
> >>
> >>
> >>  VS-)
> >>
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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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