Follow-up on sluff - play hooky, slack off

[Benjamin Barrett]

Not being familiar with the meaning of "slough off its skin" for snakes, I don't have that connection. I can understand the etymological connection but have trouble seeing "sloughing off its skin" being a basis for something like "quit sluffing (off) and get back to work."

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

On Aug 9, 2011, at 5:56 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> I can "slough off" anything I want, just like a snake sloughs (off) its
> skin.  It's like shrugging it off.
>
> OTOH, it isn't an expression I use more than once every twenty or thirty
> years.
>
> I can't say I'm familiar with "sloughing school," however.
>
> If "sluffer" was ever "army slang," few people could have used it.  I
> find no trace of it anywhere else.  A "sluffer" would simply be someone who
> sloughs things off, i.e., ignores what must be tended to.
>
> JL
> On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 4:29 AM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com>wrote:
>
>>
>> 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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