[Ads-l] to mean-mug

Stanton McCandlish smccandlish at GMAIL.COM
Sat Feb 13 15:23:43 UTC 2021


I only first encountered this last year, though I wonder if goes back a
long way, since "mug" for 'face' is very old-school, and mostly only seems
to survive otherwise in the phrase "mug shot".



On Fri, Feb 12, 2021 at 8:45 AM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Quora.com:
>
> "So you know, all the Wehrmacht would have to do is roll up and mean mug
> the commies, and the entire USSR would fall apart."
>
> Wiktionary: "(African-American Vernacular, transitive) To shoot a dirty
> look at someone; to express hostility or menace towards someone through a
> dirty look."
>
> JL
> --
>
> "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
>

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



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