"sleep tight"

[Nathaniel Sharpe]

I remember my grandmother laughing at "good night, sleep tight" because
she interpreted it to mean "sleep like a drunkard."

While it seems the intoxicated sense of "tight" was not the phrase's
original meaning, I did find an 1869 article referring to a soused old
lady as being "asleep half tight."

Nat

On 2/15/2013 1:46 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dan Goncharoff<thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "sleep tight"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> There is a snippet from Little Men in GB that reads, "Now this is the
> curiousest part of it, so you listen tight, for I don't believe you know
> it."
>
> DanG
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 7:43 PM, Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: "sleep tight"
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> James Edward Grant (via John Wayne) _The Alamo_ (1960): "I'm gonna tell you
>> something, Flaca, and I want you to listen tight."
>>
>> Here it = 'real, real closely'
>>
>> I don't believe I've ever encountered "listen tight" elsewhere.
>>
>> JL
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 7:28 PM, Wilson Gray<hwgray at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>
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>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Wilson Gray<hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>>> Subject:      Re: "sleep tight"
>>>
>>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 4:21 PM, Jonathan Lighter
>>> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>> Fast  "asleep."
>>> Precisely my point! Joh, you understand! :-)
>>>
>>> Just heard Colbert say,
>>>
>>> "The name of this movie is _called_ ['Whatever']."
>>>
>>> So, he really *is* a son of the South!:-)
>>>
>>> --
>>> -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
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>>
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>>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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