[Ads-l] _to lose one's hair_ Beatles Don't Pass me by

Stephen Goranson goranson at DUKE.EDU
Wed Oct 24 15:52:09 UTC 2018


>From Bowen, The Death of the Heart (NY: Knopf, 1975) e.g., p.323: "This is what one gets for being so nicely nonchalant, for saving people's faces, for not losing one's hair."


SG


________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Andy Bach <....>
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2018 11:23 AM
To: ...
Subject: [ADS-L] _to lose one's hair_ Beatles Don't Pass me by

I've always wondered about the line explaining her lateness: "you were in a
car crash and you lost your hair."  In the WikiP article, they have:
 However, the expression "to lose one's hair" was a fairly common English
idiom, and simply means "to become anxious or upset" (see, for
instance, Elizabeth
Bowen <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_Elizabeth-5FBowen&d=DwIBaQ&c=imBPVzF25OnBgGmVOlcsiEgHoG1i6YHLR0Sj_gZ4adc&r=uUVa-8oDL2EzfbuMuowoUadHHcJ7pjul6iFkS5Pd--8&m=yopnBeNgY3xrpgEZYI_i94kiVnaGMhw0e1D_-5MIT-Y&s=E9XTpC3w_GkG_06GBIzJdrmDES8TWUJjc2ENnrQdAeI&e=>'s novel *The Death of
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/48/Elizabeth_Bowen.jpg]<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_Elizabeth-5FBowen&d=DwIBaQ&c=imBPVzF25OnBgGmVOlcsiEgHoG1i6YHLR0Sj_gZ4adc&r=uUVa-8oDL2EzfbuMuowoUadHHcJ7pjul6iFkS5Pd--8&m=yopnBeNgY3xrpgEZYI_i94kiVnaGMhw0e1D_-5MIT-Y&s=E9XTpC3w_GkG_06GBIzJdrmDES8TWUJjc2ENnrQdAeI&e=>

Elizabeth Bowen - Wikipedia<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_Elizabeth-5FBowen&d=DwIBaQ&c=imBPVzF25OnBgGmVOlcsiEgHoG1i6YHLR0Sj_gZ4adc&r=uUVa-8oDL2EzfbuMuowoUadHHcJ7pjul6iFkS5Pd--8&m=yopnBeNgY3xrpgEZYI_i94kiVnaGMhw0e1D_-5MIT-Y&s=E9XTpC3w_GkG_06GBIzJdrmDES8TWUJjc2ENnrQdAeI&e=>
urldefense.proofpoint.com


the Heart <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_The-5FDeath-5Fof-5Fthe-5FHeart&d=DwIBaQ&c=imBPVzF25OnBgGmVOlcsiEgHoG1i6YHLR0Sj_gZ4adc&r=uUVa-8oDL2EzfbuMuowoUadHHcJ7pjul6iFkS5Pd--8&m=yopnBeNgY3xrpgEZYI_i94kiVnaGMhw0e1D_-5MIT-Y&s=CNFNs0toTL_zlaHEAHZ_-8a_xXonxEB4v5VP7wZEu-o&e=>*, 1938)
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_Don-2527t-5FPass-5FMe-5FBy&d=DwIBaQ&c=imBPVzF25OnBgGmVOlcsiEgHoG1i6YHLR0Sj_gZ4adc&r=uUVa-8oDL2EzfbuMuowoUadHHcJ7pjul6iFkS5Pd--8&m=yopnBeNgY3xrpgEZYI_i94kiVnaGMhw0e1D_-5MIT-Y&s=u5zi2AJa3smMo7fpaw_1PkLOS-Dnwtpn2qqz5MQAKyw&e=

While it makes a little more sense that way for the song but a few googles
don't come up with any hair losing/become upset idioms, English (British?)
or otherwise.
--

a

Andy Bach,
<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=DwIBaQ&c=imBPVzF25OnBgGmVOlcsiEgHoG1i6YHLR0Sj_gZ4adc&r=uUVa-8oDL2EzfbuMuowoUadHHcJ7pjul6iFkS5Pd--8&m=yopnBeNgY3xrpgEZYI_i94kiVnaGMhw0e1D_-5MIT-Y&s=knbRqvWEq3vj-qr0VgXEcLL9h6SghhtNDlFsXaj1kc8&e=>

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