[Ads-l] break a leg

[Jonathan Lighter]

The sentence is lexically ambiguous, but it's unlikely to assume, as Hall
seems to, that an unidentified person broke the woman's leg, and that it
was "mischief" of a sort that would arouse his curiosity.

The idiom is attested earlier in England and later in the U.S. "A Word-List
from Alabama,"  Dialect Notes, 1909, p. 294: "Break one's leg...Of a woman,
to become with child illegitimately."

JL

On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 2:49 PM Baker, John <JBAKER at stradley.com> wrote:

> Is there internal evidence showing that Walker was referring to an
> unwanted pregnancy and not to a literal break of the leg?  The wording
> seems to me to be inconclusive.
>
>
> John Baker
>
>
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf Of
> Laurence Horn
> Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2020 2:43 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: break a leg
>
> External Email - Think Before You Click
>
>
> Or 'become pregnant or bear a child out of wedlock, esp. during a
> successful theatrical performance'?
>
> Actually, the two idioms differ in this respect, since "She got her leg
> broken" can't be understood as referring to a performance, as opposed to a
> pre-performance "Break a leg!" I'm not even sure I could report "I told
> her to break a leg, and she did" to mean she did well on stage, given the
> frozenness of the idiom.
>
> LH
>
> On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 2:38 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
> <mailto:wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>>
> wrote:
>
> > 'To become pregnant or bear a child out of wedlock." Rarely attested in
> > U.S.
> >
> > 1862 in C. A. Glenn, ed. _Robert Walker _Letters of Robert Walker, A
> > Soldier in the American Civil War_ (Veroqua, Wis.: Vernon Co. Censor,
> > 1917)11: And I heard about that poor unfortunate girl, Mary Campfield,
> > getting her leg broken. I should like to know who she blames for the
> > mischief.
> >
> > Walker (1841-1864) was from Saltlick, O.
> >
> > JL
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
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-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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