[Ads-l] Heard on Corrupt Crimes: _to put on_ "to pretend, to fake it"

[Ben Zimmer]

John, the OED3 entry for "put" has *transitive* examples of "put on"
(meaning "to affect, feign, pretend", as in "put it on") back to 1625, but
that's different from the intransitive usage Wilson was asking about.

DARE doesn't have an entry for "put on" as a verb, but a cite from 1909 for
the noun "put-on" also includes the relevant intransitive:

1909 _DN_ 3.361 eAL, wGA, Put on. . . To act consciously, show off. Put-on.
. . A person who puts on. . . "He's a regular put-on."

That's from L.W. Payne Jr.'s "Word-List From East Alabama" in _Dialect
Notes_, on Google Books here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=waAVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA361

Green's Dictionary of Slang includes the 1909 cite in its entry for "put
on", which lumps together transitive and intransitive uses under the sense
"to affect airs". Here are more cites for the intransitive from GDoS:

1911 S. Ford _Torchy_ 166: Don't send a cab; the folks in the block might
think I was putting on.
1933 C. McKay _Banana Bottom_ 262: But fer all you ejication an' putting on
you nuttin' more'n a nigger gal.
1949 'Hal Ellson' _Duke_ 53: But putting on that way. It'd be all right if
she could pass, but she can't.
1962 C. Clausen _I Love You Honey, But the Season's Over_ 143: She was
always puttin' on like she just fell off a Christmas tree. So refined, the
girls said.
1971 B. Malamud _Tenants_ (1972) 79: I like to bullshit with you, Lesser,
you don't put on.


On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 12:48 PM, Baker, John <JBAKER at stradley.com> wrote:

> Is this a regional term?  It’s certainly familiar to me as a white
> Kentuckian, but I was unaware of any limitation in its use (not that that
> proves anything).  The OED has it from 1625.
>
> If it is a term used primarily by African-Americans and Southern whites,
> it wouldn’t be the first time.  I’m still getting over my surprise at
> hearing the term “triflin’,” familiar to me only from my parents’ use, in a
> song by Destiny’s Child.
>
>
> John Baker
>
>
>
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of Wilson Gray
> Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2018 7:40 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Heard on Corrupt Crimes: _to put on_ "to pretend, to fake it"
>
> External Email - Think Before You Click
>
>
> "If he [J. T. Lundy] was _putting on_ [that he was heart-broken over the
> injury to his horse, Alydar], then he was doing a great job of it!"
> - Tom Dixon
> Insurance-adjuster
> Lexington, Kentucky
>
> As hard as it may be to believe, I have misplaced the relevant volume of
> DARE. So, I suppose that this intransitive _put on_ is cited in DARE, but I
> don't know that it is. IAC, I've been familiar with it since I learned to
> talk - e.g. a child pretending to be sick or hurt in order to get the
> attention of its parents is said to be "putting on":
>
> That child is just putting on. Don't pay it no mind.
>
> The use of the term by a white Kentuckian, IAC, is an indication that its
> use is not peculiar to black East Texans.
>
> AFAIK, this intransitive _put on_ has no connection with the transitive
> hippie-ism, _put someone on_. I first heard that from a fellow-GI from
> Darien, Connecticut, back in 1959. Unfortunately, he's had a stroke. It
> would be interesting to know whether he learned that in Darien or at
> Stanford, out of which he had dropped before joining the Army.
>
>
>

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