And now for something COMPLETELY random
-
Etymology fascinates me, and the U.S. television show "The Big Bang Theory," has an episode that piqued my interest. The question was posed, where did the phrase, "had you ass handed to you," come from?
Discuss :D
-
@Vaire said in And now for something COMPLETELY random:
where did the phrase, "had you ass handed to you," come from?
Ebonics?
-
@boomzilla said in And now for something COMPLETELY random:
@Vaire said in And now for something COMPLETELY random:
where did the phrase, "had you ass handed to you," come from?
Ebonics?
no. Bad boomy :/
-
@Vaire What? I'm not the one with bad gramming.
-
@boomzilla said in And now for something COMPLETELY random:
@Vaire What? I'm not the one with bad gramming.
-
Vulgarisation of the biblical, innit. St John the Baptist
-
@tufty sauce plz
-
Something something chopping off body parts something something :avacado:
-
I find it difficult to imagine lifting a donkey and carrying it around for the purposes of giving it to its owner, but I suppose if you could find a particularly small one it would be practical…
-
Searching for the answer. Found this lovely quote.
You need to give us the full sentence, but if someone is getting their ass handed to somebody, then it is slang for someone who is owned by someone else.
Yes, please explain slang with more slang again.
The OED dates it from 1961, "We were all expectin' to get our ass handed to us on a sling any minute now." But twenty years before that, people were talking about getting their head handed to them: "He can send me in against the good boys, figuring I'll get my head handed to me. But I can beat them."
Here's a start.
Having your head handed back to you could come from decapitations where the head was shown to the body, because they, rightfully, believed that the head lived for a little bit. So, head handed back to body, so to speak. However, turns out that you're in so much shock, you probably don't register what's going on, even though you technically have that capacity for a brief moment.
GET YOUR HAT HANDED TO YOU. <1927 “He described how an unnamed Vice President of a large New York City bank had once submitted a purchase offer to Mr. Ford only to HAVE HIS HAT HANDED TO HIM and the door shown to him by Mr. Ford in perfect silence.”—‘New York Times,’ 5 February, page 7> [[early literal usage]]
The connotation is different however. Having your hat handed to you is being told to leave. This is in a literal sense, as they'd often take your hat/coat, or you'd hang them up yourself. Social rules meant not wearing your hat inside, especially at a formal location or in casual conversation with a friend. So, as you were told to leave, they would hand your hat back to you as additional gesture, or as a replacement for having to ask verbally.
It could be that "having your ass handed to you" was a derogatory version of either phrase. Throwing "ass" into phrases seems to be an American custom.
-
@dkf said in And now for something COMPLETELY random:
I find it difficult to imagine lifting a donkey and carrying it around for the purposes of giving it to its owner, but I suppose if you could find a particularly small one it would be practical…
As with @xaade's hypothesis regarding hats below, having your donkey handed to you could be strong suggestion that it's time to pack up and ride homewards. (Presumably they would hand you the donkey's reins rather than the whole donkey, but then again, I'm not much into the whole horse/donkey riding business.)
-
@cvi said in And now for something COMPLETELY random:
, I'm not much into the whole horse/donkey riding business
Hot crud, Engine can trigger off of nearly anything!
-
@Tsaukpaetra said in And now for something COMPLETELY random:
@cvi said in And now for something COMPLETELY random:
, I'm not much into the whole horse/donkey riding business
Hot crud, Engine can trigger off of nearly anything!
Indeed