to "course-correct"

[Jonathan Lighter]

I'd have thought it was "re-" + (sign) "up."

The oath-taking reference seems fanciful to me. The swearing-in itself
seems hardly ever to be alluded to.

JL

On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 6:26 PM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: to "course-correct"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Oct 3, 2011, at 12:43 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
> > ... I'm reminded of the conflict in the
> > barracks, back in the day, between the supporters of _re-ing up_ and
> > the backers of _re-upping_.
> >
> > Naturally, each side thought that the other side was *seriously*
> > compromised in its control of derivation in English.
>
> OED3 (March 2010) has "re-up" with "up" treated as a verb "with reference
> to the holding up of one's right hand on taking the oath of enlistment into
> the United States armed forces", so that inflection should be on the final
> element (as it is in all the OED examples).
>
> but that wouldn't preclude analyzing the thing as a mystery head "re-" plus
> the particle "up", in which case inflection would go on the first element.
>
> arnold
>
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