[Ads-l] Green's: "shine someone on (v.)"

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Sat Feb 24 06:50:41 UTC 2018


> This always seemed to me to be a very weird locution. Why "shine on"?

"I reckon y'all done caught the ol' coon, this time, boss."

(The punch-line of an old joke. "Y'all" because there were two white mins
present.)

On Fri, Feb 23, 2018 at 11:12 PM, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:

> On 2/23/2018 7:58 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
>> Yeah, but then it would be "shine on it," which it ain't.
>>
>> JL
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 23, 2018 at 7:49 PM, Jim Parish<jparish at siue.edu>  wrote:
>>
>> I always interpreted it as "(let the sun) shine on it" - i.e., leave it
>>> alone. But that interpretation dates back to the whippersnapper I was
>>> forty-some years ago, in Santa Barbara.
>>>
>>> Jim Parish
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 2/23/2018 6:45 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>>
>>> This always seemed to me to be a very weird locution. Why "shine on"?
>>>>
>>>> JL
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Feb 23, 2018 at 5:56 PM, Wilson Gray<hwgray at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>> It seemed to mean "to skip out or not show up for" some meeting or
>>>>
>>>>> responsibility.
>>>>>
>>>>> I can't recall whether I've heard it used that way, but that use makes
>>>>> perfect sense, as in, i.e.:
>>>>>
>>>>> a) Wanna go to that meeting, tonight?
>>>>> b) Let's shine it on. ....
>>>>>
>>>> --
>
> "He shined me on" or "He shined on me"?
>
> Cf.: "He f*cked me over" or "He f*cked over me"? (see past discussion, and
> HDAS citations).
>
> In each of these pairs (and are there other comparable ones?), one member
> may have been descended from the other by way of a passive or other form
> after the original sense was forgotten. E.g., one can imagine "He f*cked
> over me" > "I got f*cked over by him" > "He f*cked me over" ... similarly,
> maybe "He shined on me" > "I got shined on by him" > "He shined me on".
>
> As for the original sense: Particularly if "He shined me on" is derived
> (somehow) from "He shined on me" .... maybe it was originally moonshine?
> "Moon" (verb) in HDAS includes the modern fundament-displaying sense and
> also an older anal-intercourse sense.
>
> Just woolgathering.
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
-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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