[Ads-l] dob (someone in), v.

[Chris Waigl]

So my spouse comes down the stairs yesterday and says she has a question
about a word. An English word. A contact she is going to work with during
an upcoming (international) meeting wrote her that he "has dobbed [her] in
for a session with [person] about [complicated network security topic]".
The sense was something along the lines of "penciled her in" or "scheduled
her". Wictionary has a few senses of dob (v.), usually with the preposition
in, one of which is "To nominate a person, often in their absence, for an
unpleasant task", which is probably what we're dealing with. It's "chiefly
Australian", which fits because the speaker works for an organisation that
operates in the Asia/Pacific region. I don't have access to Macquarie. The
OED relates it to dab (v.), but only has the specialised sense dob on
someone = inform on someone, betray.

I'm somewhat doubtful that the episode indicates migratory tendencies on
the part of this word, but just in case others have noticed it, let it be
noted here.

Chris

-- 
Chris Waigl . chris.waigl at gmail.com . chris at lascribe.net
http://eggcorns.lascribe.net . http://chryss.eu

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