[Ads-l] _break nasty_ "suddenly get threateningly angry, brush off, shine on, ig"
Margaret Lee
0000006730deb3bf-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Wed Feb 14 14:41:31 UTC 2018
It's similar to the phrase 'jump salty,' to become mad or angry.
--Margaret Lee
On Wednesday, February 14, 2018 09:23:12 AM EST, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
I always try to "bust cool." As in _West Side Story_.
JL
On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 12:14 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> A Late Summer’s Fire
> https://books.google.com/books?isbn=152450405X
> Sandra Rorie - 2016 - Preview
> I didn't know if I was going to be quiet and not confront him. It wouldn't
> do any good. I knew from many times in the past that he would just _break
> nasty_ and still deny that he was having an affair with this woman.
>
> The UD, 2005:
> Break Nasty
> (v): 1. to go the hell off on someone
> 2. to inform someone of their monumentous mistake
> the meanest way you possibly can
> 3. to inform someone of their incompetence
>
>
> I use "break nasty on," but one of my brothers, about twenty years younger
> than I am, prefers "break nasty with." He learned the phrase in Sacramento,
> whereas I learned it in Los Angeles.
>
> --
> -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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list