"call it quits" as phrasal eggcorn?

[Laurence Horn]

Really interesting, this "dialect split".  Amazing that we can all claim to be the same language when we can't agree on what calling it quits entails!  (As indicated, I'm with Dan on this, while Herb and Wilson are in the other camp and Neal is, or was, sitting it out.  Who knew?)

LH

On Mar 27, 2014, at 12:33 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:

> I have it in several contexts. In a game or contest, it means walking away
> with no one declared a winner. The same would be true of an argument -- no
> one wins, both sides end the discussion. The only way it could constitute
> the end of a relationship is if the relationship had deteriorated to
> nothing more than a never-ending argument.
>
>
> DanG
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 27, 2014 at 11:08 AM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: "call it quits" as phrasal eggcorn?
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> No.  For me it means whatever relationship we had is over.
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 27, 2014 at 12:00 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu
>>> wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>> Subject:      Re: "call it quits" as phrasal eggcorn?
>>>
>>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Do you guys have "we're quits" meaning "we're even"?
>>>
>>> LH
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mar 26, 2014, at 11:53 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 10:30 PM, Neal Whitman <nwhitman at ameritech.net
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> This message is the first intimation I ever had that "call it quits"
>>>>> meant anything other than "quit".
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It's news to me, too.
>>>>
>>>> Youneverknow.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> -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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>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
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>>>
>>
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>>
>
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