Follow-up on sluff - play hooky, slack off

[Benjamin Barrett]

On Aug 8, 2011, at 11:36 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

>
> On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 1:21 AM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>> The ADS list search for 1999 to today seems to be down, but the =
>> 1992-1999 search is working.=20
>>
>> 1. On the ADS list on 5 February 1994 =
>> (http://www.americandialect.org/americandialectarchives/feb94.html), =
>> Donald M. Lance reports being told by Jan Brunvand on the ADS list:
>>
>> -----
>> that in the public schools kids "sluff" school -- none of that hooky =
>> stuff. And the school bulletins use this term in discussing school =
>> policy. Known elsewhere? Widespread? (I don't keep up with the modern =
>> world and don't know these modren terms.) 'Sluff' is the usual term =
>> here. I 'played hooky' thirty years ago, but my wife says she used =
>> 'sluff.' She graduated from high school in 1966.
>> -----
>>
>> 2. Keith Russell says on that same day:
>> -----
>> We did have the word 'sluff-off', but that meant something more like 'to =
>> be lazy, not do one's homework, or generally not try very hard' or 'to =
>> not do something.' "Did you do your homework?" "No, I sluffed it off."
>> -----
>
> FWIW, IME, _sluff off_ covers exactly the same semantic field as _fuck
> off_.  It's always intransitive. You can't say "sluff it off" any more
> than you can say "fuck it off."

It is the same for me. Keith Russell's example is wrong for me.

BB

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