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

[Jonathan Lighter]

I think "sweat it out" here is an idiom meaning simply to "sweat."

It shares with recent use a dummy "it" that has no antecedent.

Had the writer imagined there was anything slangily metaphorical about the
phrase, the typical 19th century convention would have been to put the
undignified term in italics and between quotation marks.

The really innovative WW2 usage was to "sweat (something) out," i.e., wait
for it to end or to occur, put up with it until it happens or is over,
worry about it, etc.

JL

On Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 10:45 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole <
adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "to sweat [something] out" -- 146-year antedating, I hope
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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:
> >
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >> 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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> truth."
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