[Ads-l] "Be strung out (behind [NP])" = "be in love (with [NP])"

[Jonathan Lighter]

The HDAS def. was to be "infatuated (with)." Too narrow?

JL

On Sun, Jun 21, 2015 at 4:21 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Be strung out (behind [NP])" = "be in love (with [NP])"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The best HDAS can do (i.e., "could have done"):
>
> 1962 in Bruce Jackson _In the Life_ (1972, rpt. N.Y.: NAL, 1974) 160: I was
> in high school and I got strung out behind some old cottontail, you know.
>
> 1965 in Woodie  King, Jr., & Ron Milner, eds. _Black Drama Anthology_
> (N.Y.: NAL, 1972) 302: Gloria...was pretending we were just visitors who
> were strung out over her.
>
> 1967 _Current Slang_ II 46: Bill is strung out behind Jane.
>
> Etc.
>
> Wilson should make a list of this stuff from before the early '60s, when
> non-jazz related AAV slang was first noticed in the "mainstream media."
>
> I have very little expectation that a pre-1962 printed antedating will turn
> up.
>
> JL
>
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2015 at 12:53 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
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> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      "Be strung out (behind [NP])" = "be in love (with [NP])"
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > From time to time, I Google a random memory of slang of days of yore to
> see
> > whether I can now document it, leaving aside the question of dating.
> >
> > "Strung out (behind)" is well known WRT drug use. But, AFAIK -
> admittedly,
> > I've only half-assed the research - the use of the phrase with the
> meaning,
> > "stone in love (with)" is, at best, less known. It's not in the UD,
> anyway.
> >
> > In back-in-the-day St. Louis, from the '40's on, at least, not only did
> the
> > phrase, _be strung out (behind [NP])_ have all of the usual
> > narcotics-related meanings, but it also had the meaning, "to have one's
> > nose open (for someone), to be stone in love (with someone)."
> >
> >
> > Damaged Goods: A Novel - Page 23
> > https://books.google.com/books?isbn=3D0743268873
> > Roland S[pratlin] Jefferson[, MD] - 2005 (cf. Amazon) - =E2=80=8EPreview
> > But he was
> >
> > _strung out behind Trixie_
> >
> > the way she was strung out behind cocaine..
> >
> >
> > Of course, full documentation may well already be in the Ghost of HDAS
> Yet
> > To Come.
> >
> > One cannot know, sadly.
> >
> > The author was born in 1939, making him only a few years younger than I
> am.
> > So, he, too, may well know the term from ca. the '40's and be striving
> > gamely to save an interesting turn of phrase from undeserved extinction.
> > --=20
> > -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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> >
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
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