[Ads-l] pop a cap: big antedating

Peter Morris peter_morris_1 at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK
Wed Sep 2 05:57:01 UTC 2015


> You little Reb wid de red shirt - double quick into line or I'll pop a cap
> at you.

Just one of the many dangers of serving under Captain Kirk.Here's a cite from 1867 that suggests it had been in common use for a number of years before that.http://tinyurl.com/nsm5nmm>> The 1963 cite in HDAS is, IMO, *astonishingly* early for the *exact
>> phrase*, "bust a cap _in yo[ur] ass_." A casual Googling has no hits
>> earlier than ca. '03 and, since it's in UD, that could be just something
>> that the poster made up on the spot. Youneverknow. OTOH, I'm not sure that
>> in '63,


> Fxcked that up. My apologies.

> What I intended to say is that I'm pretty sure that I didn't hear "bust a
> cap," whether in anyone's ass or not, before 1962, when I heard "bust a cap> _in yo[ur] ass_," exactly.
January 1 1908.Dave Grant testified that between 11 and 12 o'clock at Landon's barber shop, he heard Henry Cooley say "he would bust a cap In somebody's _____, or bust It In his ____." He was going west then. http://tinyurl.com/payk3lyhttp://tinyurl.com/o8xw7se

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



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