"put on"

[Margaret Lee]

I grew up hearing, "She's just puttin' on airs,"  meaning that she's pretending to be something she's not.

--Margaret Lee


>________________________________
> From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
>Sent: Saturday, May 17, 2014 12:59 AM
>Subject: "put on"
>  
>
>To fool, kid, deceive.
>You must be putting me on.
>She's putting on that she's sicker than she really is.
>
>To assume, adopt or affect; to behave in a particular way as a pretense.
>Why are you putting on that silly voice?
>He's just putting on that limp -- his leg's actually fine.
>
>http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/put_on
>
>
>When I was but a tad, back home in Texas, _put on_ was used in these cases,
>but with the exceptions that
>
>*put someone on
>
>and
>
>*put on NP
>
>didn't exist. The corresponding forms are
>
>You must be putting on.
>She's putting on.
>Why are you putting on?
>He's just putting on.
>
>OTOH, Sam "Lightning" Hopkins, likewise a native Texan, uses the phrase,
>
>Crying and putting on
>
>in a case in which the standard is, obviously,
>
>Crying and going on.
>
>Further deponent sayeth not.
>
>--
>-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
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org/
>
>
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org