[Ads-l] pop a cap: big antedating

[Jonathan Lighter]

> "bursted a cap" from 1839

I'll take it.

JL

On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 10:35 PM, 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:      Re: pop a cap: big antedating
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 9:55 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> Googling finds two different instances of "bursted a cap" from 1839. I
> didn't see any instances of "burst/busted/bust a cap" that were earlier
> than "bursted...". But...
>
> 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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