shellacking

[Victor Steinbok]

Did you really mean "whitewash" or "polish [off]"? I've heard the latter
in the same context as "shellac" (which is lacquer, after all), but also
in the sense "finish off", "put out of [their] mysery", etc. But there
might be a generation gap on "whitewash" that I am unaware of.

     VS-)

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: shellacking
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The low-score shutout is interesting. Perhaps the original sense (quickly
> forgotten) was closer to "whitewash," which AFAIK is always limited to
> shutouts.
>
> JL

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