Antedating of "Perfect Game"

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

Never ever heard "let up a hit." Strikes me as totally UNidiomatic.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
Date:         Tue, 25 May 2010 10:20:54
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] Antedating of "Perfect Game"

I guess I conflated "let up a walk" with "let up a hit," although even the more idiomatic "let up a hit" is much less frequent than "gave up a hit" according to Google.  A lifetime of baseball-game watching and being the parent of a high school baseball team captain should give me more authority on such a question, but I guess not.

Fred



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Benjamin Zimmer [bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2010 10:02 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Antedating of "Perfect Game"

On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 9:50 AM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> It's not so odd, when one considers that it is common to say things like
> "his perfect game was spoiled when he let up a walk in the 8th inning."

I think careful commentators would say something like "his bid for a
perfect game was spoiled..." For a would-be no-hitter there's the
succinct "no-hit bid."

(And surely "...when he *gave* up a walk..." is more common...)


--Ben Zimmer

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