_Raunch[ing]_ "drink[ing]"

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Tue Mar 29 04:41:27 UTC 2011


This meaning of _raunch_, new to me, is from a post to the 78th Army
Security Agency "Alumni" UUnet page. The poster served in the 78th
from '65-'67. I got out in '62.

However, it appears from various posts that the 78th was far larger
than I thought it was. (I had no need to know, of course.) So, it
could be that it was also used when I was in the 78th, just not in the
particular subunit of it that I served in.

Since the poster felt that the term needed definition for the benefit
of his readers, it could be that it was simply an in-group, nonce
usage, like the sarcastic, "Why, no. Would you like to tell me about
it?" used in my unit response to someone else's attempt to unload the
tale of his particular woes of the day on you. Such a person usually
opened with a rhetorical question like, "Do you know WTF that asshole,
SGT Weir, had us doing on our shift?!"

As though the rest hadn't also had a day that sucked!

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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