reach for the sky

[Jonathan Lighter]

Beats me, but OED combines "reach for the sky" with the
synonymous-in-every-sense "reach for the stars," which, despite what the
entry might lead one to think, is not used nearly so often by fictional
Western gun-toters.

JL

On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 8:58 AM, William Palmer <palmerwil at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       William Palmer <palmerwil at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: reach for the sky
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Or what's a heaven for?
>
> Bill P
>
> On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 8:35 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
>  > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      reach for the sky
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > A Long Island mom on CNN tells her college-bound daughter to "reach for
> the
> > sky."
> >
> > Now, in my day, that imperative would have been appropriate only if mom
> had
> > been beandishing a six-shooter, maybe two, but in man's intervening march
> > from savagery to civilization the phrase has become mainly inspirational.
> >
> > A GB check reveals three basic usages: applied by gunslingers in horse
> > opera, descriptive of things like plants and flames, and
> > aspirational/inspirational. OED itemizes the former only.
> >
> > Early exx. of the latter:
> >
> > 1929 _Commoneal_ IX  544 [not verified in print]: Shall he take a small
> and
> > sure profit, or reach for the sky?
> >
> > 1935 _Scribner's Mag._ (XCVII) 116 [not verified in print]: If so,
> > Christian
> > missions can at least comfort themselves with the thought that once,
> > through
> > their agency, Christianity was powerful enough to inspire slaves to reach
> > for the sky. And that is no mean feat.
> >
> > The phrase probably got a boost through the title of Paul Brickhill's
> 1954
> > bestseller _Reach for the Sky_, about Douglas Bader, who became a fighter
> > ace in the RAF despite having lost both legs in a prewar plane crash. I
> > feel
> > certain that the self-help phrase has skyrocketed since the '70s. GB
> > doesn't
> > offers relatively few before Brickhill.
> >
> > This significantly antedates the OED in the six-shooter context. (OED
> does
> > poorly on the synonymous, monosyllabic "Reach!"):
> >
> > 1910 William MacLeod Raine _A Texas Ranger_  (N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap,
> 1911)
> > 154: "Now, reach for the sky, and prompt, too." ...The deputy disarmed
> his
> > captive.
> >
> > After Zane Grey, William MacLeod Raine was probably the most successful
> of
> > the pre-1920 authors of pulp westerns. He was an Oberlin graduate.
> >
> > JL
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
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> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
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