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

Fri Mar 30 14:40:58 UTC 2018

I detect a distinction. "He was just putting on" says to me, "He was just
pretending."

"He was just putting us on" says, "He was just trying to fool or tease us."

JL

On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 9:46 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> > 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
>

-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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