[Ads-l] Heard: "His father wouldn't...

[Jonathan Lighter]

As so often happens, Wilson's devoted attention to AAVE affords valuable
information unavailable elsewhere.

"Give / cut slack" would only go back to the late '60s in HDAS III, if such
a thing were to exist.

JL

On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 2:59 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Heard: "His father wouldn't...
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _give_ him any slack."
>
>
> Of very trivial interest, primarily - or only - because I heard the phrase
> originally as "give...slack," back in '54, whereas, today, "cut...slack" is
> *far* more common.
> --
> -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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