sack up

[Ben Zimmer]

On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 10:43 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> Grant found this in 2004. Here's an antedating and a mainstream appearance.
>
> 2003 UrbanDictionary.com (July 28): To gather up one's courage for a
> daunting task. _Sargeant Bohannon shrieked at Private Entwhistle, "Sack up,
> you panty-wearing dipstick...bayonet practice may save your life...now
> lunge, thrust, stick and twist...repeat..._
>
> 2013 Teddy Wayne, in _New Yorker_ (Mar. 28) 51: He's slumped over his desk,
> feeling sorry for himself. "Sack up, junior!" I boom.

Grant's Double-Tongued entry actually had cites back to 1994 (now antedated by
Hugo's 1993 Usenet cite elsethread). Since Grant folded the Double-Tongued
material into waywordradio.org, the definition is separated from the cites,
making it harder to piece together:

http://www.waywordradio.org/sack_up/
http://www.waywordradio.org/sack_up_1/

Internet Archive still has the full Double-Tongued entry complete with cites:

http://web.archive.org/web/20120510163949/http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/sack_up/

I mentioned Grant's work on this and "nut up" in my On Language column on "man
up":

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/magazine/05FOB-onlanguage-t.html

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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