"to sweat [something] out" -- 146-year antedating, I hope

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Below is an instance in 1855 where "sweat it out" means to persevere,
wait, delay, I think. But the setting is summer, so the phrase also
comically references physical sweating. The OED gloss mentions anxiety
which is muted in this example.

[ref] 1855 August 25, Supplement to the Courant, Volume 20, Number 19,
Section: Poetry, Poem: I Would Not Die at All, Quote Page 145, Column
1, Published by Thomas M. Day, Hartford, Connecticut. (Google Books
full view)

http://books.google.com/books?id=0uIRAAAAYAAJ&q=%22sweat+it%22#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]

I Would Not Die at All

(Second stanza)

I would not die in summer,
When trees are filled with fruit
And every sportsman has a gun,
The little birds to shoot,
The girls then wear the bloomer dress,
And half distract the men,
It is the time to sweat it out,
I would not perish then.

[End excerpt]

The other stanzas help to clarify the intention of the poem.

Garson

On Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 10:04 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: "to sweat [something] out" -- 146-year antedating, I hope
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I think Boylston means not to "endure it" but to to "get rid of it" through
> feverish effort.
>
> There's a much more persuasive ex. from 1866 in HDAS III or IV.  Ask for it
> at your extra-dimensional booksellers!
>
> There's also one from 1929.  Whatever its early history, the phrase became
> a familiar cliche' only during WWII, app. via the AAF.
>
> JL
>
> On Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 5:30 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>> Subject:      "to sweat [something] out" -- 146-year antedating, I hope
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>>
>> Acknowledging that sweat, v., "has not yet been
>> fully updated (first published 1918)."
>>
>> "But for those who out of private Piques or
>> Views, have exclaim'd and railed against it
>> [smallpox inoculation], and who have trumpt up
>> the groundless ill Consequences that would attend
>> or follow it: Such I leave to sweat it out with
>> just Reflection and due Repentance."
>>
>> Zabdiel Boylston, _An Historical Account of the
>> Small-Pox Inoculated in New England [etc.]_, The
>> Second Edition, Corrected. Re-Printed at Boston
>> for S. Gerrrish and T. Hancock, 1730.  Preface, vi.
>>
>> "sweat, v." 9.b "trans. With out, to await or
>> endure anxiously or with unease. Esp. in phr. to
>> sweat it out . colloq.", antedates 1876-- ('M. Twain').
>>
>> There is the earlier (1592--) sense 2.b.
>> (trans.?) "fig. To give forth or get rid of as by
>> sweating; slang, to spend, lay out (money). Also
>> with away, out.", for which the OED has
>> "c1610=9615   tr. St. Augustine Life St. Monica in
>> C. Horstmann Lives Women Saints (1886) 140,   I
>> could not sweate out from my hart that bitternes
>> of sorrow."  But I think Boylston's quote does
>> not have the connotation of "to emit" something,
>> rather of time passing and the world accepting
>> inoculation despite the views of its opponenet.
>>
>> There are a few earlier instances of
>> "sweat/sweated/sweating it out" in GBooks, but
>> they all seem to be literal, e.g. in the context
>> of illness.  For example, the OED has under sense
>> 1.a "1700  Dryden Chaucer's Cock & Fox in Fables
>> 224   With Exercise she sweat ill Humors out."
>> However, since the form is "sweat [something]
>> out", it seems difficult to search for a figurative instance.
>>
>> Joel
>>
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>
>
> --=20
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