[Ads-l] hit the ground running

[George Thompson]

Both these passages have "hit the ground running" in a negative sense:
running away to escape punishment. I think of it as having a positive
value: when he is sworn in, Biden plans to hit the ground running [to get
started immediately].

GAT

On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 7:25 PM James Eric Lawson <jel at nventure.com> wrote:

> Title:     Sermons and sayings. First series / by Sam P. Jones ;
>             edited by W. M. Leftwich.
> Author:    Jones, Sam P. (Sam Porter), 1847-1906.
> Publisher: Nashville, Tenn. : Southern Methodist Pub. House, 1885.
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__babel.hathitrust.org_cgi_pt-3Fid-3Dmdp.39015063595501&d=DwICaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=hdNJqDkmq0fSCis4Aad7_0-6fHImnm_z7XZTF5Wb-zc&s=5PN_ukYUoAdbgKJ8hOJX_R_dv3Cwcl8A67_wFAkleN4&e=
>
> I don't know what has become of all of those correspondents that filled
> the daily papers. Why don't they sail in now? And if any correspondent
> sails in let him sail in over his own name. If I can get him up here and
> shake him you will see him hit the ground running. You can't shake a nom
> de plume much, though.
>
> Sam Jones also seems to have popularized "a hit dog will holler".
>
> On 1/17/21 7:13 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > 1895: OED
> >
> > 1885 _Indianapolis Journal _ (June 6) 11: All I have to say is sign
> > your name to what you write and by the time I get through with you
> > you'll hit the ground running. [Laughter].
> >
> > JL
> >
>
> --
> James Eric Lawson
> Tacoma, Washington
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society -
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=DwICaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=hdNJqDkmq0fSCis4Aad7_0-6fHImnm_z7XZTF5Wb-zc&s=u62MwWFhwRhNhzoyjRVaBZULOUCtKCGwsqhtpPiSjnY&e=
>


-- 
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998.

But when aroused at the Trump of Doom / Ye shall start, bold kings, from
your lowly tomb. . .
L. H. Sigourney, "Burial of Mazeen", Poems.  Boston, 1827, p. 112

The Trump of Doom -- also known as The Dunghill Toadstool.  (Here's a
picture of his great-grandfather.)
http://www.parliament.uk/worksofart/artwork/james-gillray/an-excrescence---a-fungus-alias-a-toadstool-upon-a-dunghill/3851

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