Hell-bent!

@laughoutlood,

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A maven would enjoy the Cockney Alphabet given the "L for leather" reference.

A maven I'm not. Those are the bad guys, like McTag. Smile

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One purported etymology site quoted 1928 putatively as the earliest reference to hell bent for leather without attribution and with the usual melding of metaphors story.

Seems that this, and maybe some other research, might have been helpful sometime earlier. Just so one person doesn't have to should the entire burden.

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@JTT,

JTT wrote:

Yes, I suspect that you too, are a Brit, Izzy.

You only suspect it?

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@izzythepush,

If you are prepared to come in here, hell bent as if for leather, and admit to being of or from the monarchy about whose language the fighting is all about, then I might push upon you thricely with my pointy finger of coulder shoulder but didn't.

no time to understand em
just rope n throw n brand em

1 Reply

@JTT,

Quote:

A maven I'm not. Those are the bad guys, like McTag. Smile

I don't think I'm very often prescriptive. I usually say something like "I don't like it" or "it sounds odd to me" and leave it at that. Common sense usually prevails.

As far as "research" goes, an unattributed source from 1928 which suggests mis-melding of metaphors is good enough for me. Wink

It's now in my lexicon ....of things to avoid.

(goes off, singing
Keep rollin', rollin', rollin',
Though the streams are swollen
Keep them dogies rollin'
Rawhide!)

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@laughoutlood,

I'm no aristocrat. I'm very ambivalent about the Royals. I've gone from being an armchair republican to a reluctant royalist mostly because I don't care much for the alternatives.

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@roger,

roger wrote:

I've seen it reasonably often in the western genre. In paperback, mostly. I don't recall having actually heard the expression.

hell-bent for leather was a stock phrase when I grew up in Eastern Ontario in the 1960's. Until I came across this thread, I thought everyone used it in conversation.

Live and learn eh.

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@izzythepush,

Understatement, Iz.

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@McTag,

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I don't think I'm very often prescriptive.

That exactly what you are, as I recall, that's what you've been most often, McTag. That's what you're being here and have been here.

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I usually say something like "I don't like it" or "it sounds odd to me" and leave it at that.

That's prescriptive. And nothing else. I asked you, "what possible consequence would your uninformed opinion have to determining how language is used?"

And you didn't address it.

Nor have you addressed the fact that you don't seem to understand the meaning of the word 'usually'.

Or that 'for' was collocated in the fashion you opine is wrong in a movie title. As I mentioned to Contrex [something else you avoided], if that was in any fashion unidiomatic, the prescriptivists would have been all over it, like the "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" contretemps.

And you don't "leave it at that". You most often include a snide remark intended to show, from your prescriptive viewpoint, that you view perfectly natural language notions as beneath contempt.

One would think that a fellow who so actively supported so much nonsense in the Peeves threads would show a little more humility.

Beth now also notes that you are out to lunch.

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Common sense usually prevails.

We wish.

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As far as "research" goes, an unattributed source from 1928 which suggests mis-melding of metaphors is good enough for me. It's now in my lexicon ....of things to avoid.

Yes, the volumes of common sense that have wafted back and forth thru this thread would suggest that as a Brit, it might be wise to follow the patterns of your dialect.

There's been much more that does far more than 'suggest' that all you have been doing is whistling dixie.

Being a Brit, you may well also be unfamiliar with that. For your edification,

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=whistling%20dixie

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@izzythepush,

Quote:

I've gone from being an armchair republican to a reluctant royalist mostly because I don't care much for the alternatives.

And you have good and ample reason to feel that way. Despite all the clamor, the US system is hardly a more perfect union. Such is the power of propaganda.

But surely you must feel and allow that mankind is not so limited in their thinking and imagination that these two silly systems are the only way.

The Brit royalty are, at best, perfunctory. And the most highly amusing thing in all this, the US replaced that hated monarchy, that arch villain, [G the 3, wasn't it?], they got shed of everything that is bad about government and replaced it with their very own king/queen, aka president.

Now th

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@JTT,

More of your usual peevish bile, I'm not going to respond to any of it. Beneath contempt, indeed.

I knew about whistling Dixie, although you chose to tell me about it. I noticed what you didn't tell me, which is that "hell bent for leather" is anything other than as I described it.

1 Reply

@McTag,

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More of your usual peevish bile, I'm not going to respond to any of it.

So, then, you proceed to respond to it, McTag.

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I knew about whistling Dixie, although you chose to tell me about it.

Excuse me, but you seemed to be ignorant of many of the idioms that are found in AmE and CdE. You also seem to be hell bent on ignoring that you have been brought up to speed on how it is used, not in the UK, but in North America.

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I noticed what you didn't tell me, which is that "hell bent for leather" is anything other than as I described it.

And what did you, in your ignorance, in complete defiance of reality, describe it as? What did you, in your unrelenting "I'm sticking to my guns" ignorance, your "ignoring all the facts" ignorance describe it as?

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Only useful for song lyrics writers, as noted.

And your proof:

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I think that that is a rather shaky amalgam of "hell for leather", and "hell-bent on...)

Has that come from your thinking and your original research?

With no rancor. You're not all that well versed in how a great many idioms have come to language, are you, McTag, idioms, we must note, that you use daily?

But, as you have to allow, though likely you won't, being well versed in how the English language is actually used was not something you ever thought important. Just look to how actively you supported the peeves and the peevists.

Yours has most always been the prescriptive way, the stuff of style manuals, the my parents/my teacher/some wag told me such and such so it must be gospel.

You would do yourself and the truth a big favor if you were to purchase the following;

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/280-8310425-4694014?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+merriam+webster+dictionary+of+english+usage

It is a book that relies on the facts, the truth in trying to sort out language usage.

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@JTT,

About the only use for your recent posts is their entertainment value. You are an expert at whipping up a storm in a teacup: (a good old British idiom which I can easily explain to you.)

Apart from trying, but failing, to poke fun at me, I notice you have not yet disproved anything I have ventured about this awkward phrase.
Nor can you, because you are writing a load of tripe.
Personal abuse, instead of reasoned logic.
What would Mr Pinker say? He'd probably say, if you're in a hole, time to stop digging.

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@ehBeth,

Quote:

Re: roger

roger wrote:

I've seen it reasonably often in the western genre. In paperback, mostly. I don't recall having actually heard the expression.

Quote:

ehBeth wrote:

hell-bent for leather was a stock phrase when I grew up in Eastern Ontario in the 1960's. Until I came across this thread, I thought everyone used it in conversation.

Live and learn eh.

Aye, and living longer one will learn more, it's hoped.

The rather odd expression "hell-bent for leather" originated in the 1800's and was even then a corruption of "hell for leather" which, in turn, was a corruption of "hell on leather" which referred to a saddle or to a horse's hide. It was also used with reference to the fabled gunslingers slapping leather.

The "hell-bent" which was added to make the expression we're familiar with was a discombobulation of "hell-bent on" and the corruption "for leather." "Hell-bent on leather" indicates riding flat-out on a saddled horse. Unless, of course, the horse was only bent and not broken, in which case the saddleless rider was hell-bent on busting his ass, or not to mix up the stock, his arse.

And now I'm kitchen-bent on shoe leather to get me supper.

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@Debacle,

A Debacle to be sure.

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