[Ads-l] "give", n.

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Wed Feb 22 01:43:06 UTC 2017


In the tradition of “the ask”, “the reveal”, etc., here’s an example of a noun I haven’t come across before, especially in this sense:

  “You got more than you gave yesterday and that won’t happen again.”
  “I don’t expect it to. How’s your morning looking?”
  “For you my morning’s wide open. Why?”
  “Meet me at Ida Forsythe’s house in a half hour. You’ll get the big give then”

—conversation between two detectives from different bureaus in _The Wrong Side of Goodbye_ (Michael Connelly, 2016, p. 363)

Earlier in the novel, there was a reference to “the reveal”, but that one is well attested, as we’ve discussed.  Actually, “the big give” does have a lot of g-hits, but in the sense of a charity donation or fund-raising goals (i.e. gifts), not the giving of information.

LH
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