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

[Laurence Horn]

> On Mar 29, 2018, at 10:00 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> I'm not at all familiar with the "putting on airs, acting above one's
> station" meaning, only with the "faking it" meaning that's very close to
> the meaning of the transitive, "hippie" term, _to put someone on_. If the
> original sentence,
> 
> "If he was _putting on_, then he was doing a great job of it!"
> 
> were re-written as,
> 
> "If he  was _putting us on_, then he was doing a great job of it!"
> 
> then, for me, there would be no shift in meaning at all.

Ditto for me.

LH
> 
> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 10:39 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> Intrans. familiar to me from E TN whites:  common, I'd say.
>> 
>> "But he was just putting on," i.e. pretending.
>> 
>> JL
>> 
>> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 9:05 AM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> 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.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> 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
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> -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

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