[Ads-l] _on the bone_ in the UD

[Jonathan Lighter]

Oddly, that was roughly my experience too.

In the '80s or '90s, when I innocently used the phrase "pulled a boner"
before a class of freshmen, you can imagine the reaction. The point is,
none of them had ever heard the innocent interpretation.

Go figure.

JL

On Tue, Mar 6, 2018 at 2:18 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> "Having an erect penis; having a boner; having a hard on; being on hard"
> November 23, 2006
>
> From time to time, I look to see whether some random slang that I know has
> been documented somewhere or other. In this case, I have found the _exact_
> definition in, of all places, the Urban Dictionary. And note that "hard on"
> is spelled out as two words and that the phrase, "on hard," also occurs.
> It's "like a letter from home," to coin a phrase.
>
> I became familiar with "on the bone" ca. 1947, "hard on" and "on hard" ca.
> 1943, though the latter two phrases probably can be dated to the Creation.
> Oddly, I never heard "boner" - except in the meaning, "egregious error" -
> till 1969.
> --
> -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
>



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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org