ILL, the verb

[Laurence Horn]

On Jan 26, 2013, at 11:38 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:

> I'd never heard of this, as far as I know, but Googling on "have to ill it" gets a lot of hits.
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> Seattle, WA
>
> On Jan 26, 2013, at 8:33 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
>
>> This must be old, but a first glance tells me it will be difficult to
>> tease out from various unrelated instances.  Including being mistaken
>> for "fill it (in/out)".  Not found under OED's "ill, v.", not surprisingly.
>>
>> "You'll have to ILL it: You can't get a copy, I've tried."
>>
and in fact it expands to mean the opposite of what it stands for, I'm guessing:  ILL = "Inter-Library Loan", but here meaning "Borrow via an ILL request"

LH

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