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

[Jonathan Lighter]

I don't believe there's any evidence at all for the existence of and
earlier "Shine on it."

That's the epistemological difficulty.

JL


On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 1:50 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> > 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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 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."

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