Heard on The judges: "Ripping and running"

Sat Apr 30 13:51:51 UTC 2011

I might have found a 1906 hit, but, first things first.

Taking it in another direction, there are quite a few /recent/ hits for
"rip-and-run" with a number of different meanings. I got over 500 raw GB
hits just on direct search pattern--didn't even try any variations yet and
haven't had a chance to look through the entire collection (probably will
come down to a couple of hundred /actual/ hits). The impression so far is
that the expression is actually quite diverse. There is a "rip-and-run"
football play that's mentioned /at least/ since 1991. But there are several
other uses in reference to particular actions and types of behavior,
including "wild" spending, children running around, theft (e.g., lifting car
stereos--literally ripping them out and running away), construction
day-jobs, etc. So there are both verbal "rip and run" and adjectival
"rip-and-run".

A couple that may be worth noting.

http://goo.gl/kq2hP
The Granta book of the American long story. Ed. by Richard Ford. London:
1998
A Long Day in November. By Ernest J. Gaines. p. 261 [Full text preview.
Reprinted in another collection in 2006--First shows up in Texas Quarterly,
1964, then in Langston Hughes, The Best Short Stories by Black Writers, 1967
and Gaines's own collection in 1968]
> You ain't satisfied 'less he got you doing all the work while he rip and
run up and down the road with his other nigger friends. No, you ain't
satisfied.
p,. 263
> 'You just take one more step toward my door,' Fran'mon says, 'and it'll
take a' undertaker to get you out of here. So help me, God, I'll get that
butcher knife out of that kitchen and chop on your tail till I can't see
tail to chop on. You the kind of nigger like to rip and run up and down the
road in your car long 's you got a dime, but when you get broke and you
belly get empty you run to your wife and cry on her shoulder. ...'

http://goo.gl/hQ7Rf
Black Enterprise. Vol. 20:10. May 1990
Personal Finance Profiles. Where Are They Now. By Lloyd Gite.
George and Lisbeth Crawford. p. 62/1
> "On weekends we used to rip and run all the time. We'd go to dinner,
parties and to the movies. Now we find ourselves centering our attention on
our kids.
p. 64/1
> Last year the Crawfords say they spent $3,000 on diapers and baby food,
and $8,000 for a babysitter. Although the Crawfords can't afford to "rip and
run" like they used to, shrewd financial planning has enabled them to
continue to enjoy the good life.

http://goo.gl/eRgxi
Fire in my Bones: Transcendence and the Holy Spirit in African American
Gospel. By Glenn Hinson. 2000
Chapter 16. "We Didn't Come for No Form or Fashion". p. 248
> As a singer, he had convinced himself that the only way to move a crowd
was to "rip and run." Such "outside show" always got the shouts and grabbed
the acclaim.

http://goo.gl/04bS0
Mother Jones Magazine. Vol. 1:5. July 1976
Sports Books: The Best of All Seasons. By Ropert Lipsyte. p. 60
> After 14 1/2 years in the prison of my fat--I started that July at 211
pounds--I was finally ready to rip and run. That summer of my liberation I
lost 46 pounds and read /Farewell to Sport/ three times, some parts five or
six, lying in bed exhausted after a day of mowing lawns.

http://goo.gl/zUmMR [Snippet not visible, text from preview.]
http://goo.gl/d3nWg [Full snippet visible, but volume/date/page not
verified.]
American Magazine. 1952
p. 124/3
> When we stopped in the late afternoon for the night — stopping early to
give the children an hour or two in which to rip and run--we discovered that
not only had we covered our mileage quota without racing, but that we had
had a lot of fun and still loved one another dearly.

Cold Steel. By Matthew Phipps Shiel. 1929
> The women sat still, three with babies at the breast, waiting that the
boat should rip and run, and the trip be done; Bessie's forehead was propped
on her palm astarboard; and she was so undone ...

Again, I am not trying to be systematic or exhaustive here--merely picking
out a sample. Note that the last one (1929) does not appear in the same
meaning as the rest--it's the only non-spurious hit before 1950. But,
following up on Garson's variants, I also tried "rip-an'-run" and got two
hits.

http://goo.gl/YziRm [Snippet not visible, text from preview only.]
The wonderful weald and the quest of the crock of gold. By Arthur Beckett.
1924
> So off dey goos over de fields wid de mare's-egg ; and prensly him what
was a-carryin' of it ketches his foot in a hole in de groun' so dat he
dropped de pumpkin all of a sudden, an' starts a hare from de bushes so dat
it rip-an-run ...

http://goo.gl/fS62V
Sprigs o' Mint. By James Tandy Ellis. 1906
Bill Boles, Of the Steamboat Band. p. 86
> Hist legs they were bowed, jes' as if they's made
> Fer that fiddle to set between.
> His hands they was big as a post-hole spade,
> An' I reckon about as clean.
> But when he strung fer a rip an' run,
> His face a-smile like the risin' sun,
> He looked right well--the son of a gun,--
> At least, thar air worse I have seen.

The last one certainly seems authentic--Harvard Library stamp is from 1940
on the 1906 copyright page and the same date appears on the title page, even
though the font looks a bit more modern than that. The book's title is in
the header on every page, so it's not picked up from another source.

VS-)

On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 7:40 AM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

>
> Great finds Wilson! Here is [Rippin' and Runnin'] used in the title of
> a recording in Billboard magazine in 1952.
>
> Cite: 1952 June 28, Billboard, Rhythm & Blues Record Releases, Page
> 37, Column 2, Nielsen Business Media, Inc.
>
> Rippin' and Runnin' - Tiny Bradshaw & Ork (Lay It) King 4547
> http://books.google.com/books?id=AR4EAAAAMBAJ&q=rippin#v=snippet&
>
> In the prose domain the form [rippin' an' runnin'] probably appears in
> the following 1958 novel.
>
> Cite: 1958, Let No Man Write My Epitaph by Willard Motley, GB Page
> 155, Random House, New York. (Google Books snippet; Not verified on
> paper; Data may be inaccurate; Duke catalog concurs with date of
> publication)
>
> They're rippin' an' runnin' to try to get some money to satisfy that
> Chinaman. That goddamn Chinaman's ridin' them so fast they ain't even
> got time to talk to you.
> http://books.google.com/books?id=PP1JAAAAMAAJ&q=rippin#search_anchor
>
> Here is a link to the Wikipedia entry for the author, Willard Motley:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Motley
>
> The book was made into a movie in 1960. Here is the IMDB link:
> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054021/
>
>
> Here is a raw match in Google Books with a GB date of 1946. I cannot
> generate a snippet showing the excerpt, so I do not know much about
> it. The UNC catalog says volume 55 is dated 1946; vol. 56 is 1947;
> vol. 57 is 1948. Date probes produce information consistent with the
> time period.
>
> Coopers international journal: Volumes 55-57
> Coopers International Union of North America - 1946 - Snippet view
> No longer should we be set as individual workers after realizing what
> it means to be an organized group. Lay offs, lost favors with the
> company, are fruits of ripping and running on the job. A fair day's
> work is expected and ...
> http://books.google.com/books?id=KQh_AAAAMAAJ&
>
> The phrase used with a different meaning in 1909:
> 1909, Spices and how to know them by Walter M. Gibbs
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=hsUuAAAAYAAJ&q=ripping#v=snippet&q=ripping&f=false
>
>

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