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

[Parish, James]

Ah. So the corresponding variant for the other phrase would be "lost 
your shirt"?

Jim Parish

On 10/24/2018 1:04 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
> The phrase "keep your hair on" has a long history and seems to mean
> "keep your composure". Perhaps "you lost your hair" meant "you lost
> your composure" or "you lost your temper".
>
> Year: 1889
> Title: A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant
> Compiler and Editor: Albert Barrère and ?Charles G. Leland
> Publisher: Printed for Subscribers Only
> Quote Page 442
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> Hair (common) "keep your hair on," do not be excited, keep your
> temper; varied to "keep your shirt on."
>
> With the most perfect good temper the new-comer answered the
> expostulations of the fat woman with a "Keep yer hair on,
> Lizer."--Sporting Times.
> [End excerpt]
>
> Garson
> On Wed, Oct 24, 2018 at 11:24 AM Andy Bach <afbach at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bowen>'s novel *The Death of
>> the Heart <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Heart>*, 1938)
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Pass_Me_By
>>
>> 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,
>> afbach at gmail.com
>> 608 658-1890 cell
>> 608 261-5738 wk
>>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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