[Ads-l] Trivia: heard _nut up_, HDAS "go crazy or go berserk"

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Fri Aug 19 20:57:25 UTC 2016


Reality TV, white speaker:

"When she saw me with my new girl, she just _nutted up_!"

I haven't heard anyone say that in 65 years and never before anybody white
say it before nor have I heard it used with that meaning before.

Back in the The Lou in the '50's, to _nut up_ was to "burst into
uncontrolled laughter, turning and bending at the waist, slapping thigh,
guffawing," etc. More-mature readers may recall this as one of Sammy Davis,
Jr.'s shticks. Younger readers may have seen this parodied - as a general
black thing,  as it it is: been there, done that; and not as anyone's
particular shtick- on Key & Peele.

My WAG, FWIW, is that both uses derive ultimately from _go nuts_. 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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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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