Oct 3, 2013 02:29
10 yrs ago
2 viewers *
English term
To "give on that"... [PRETEND and CONVEY?]
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Similar and Interchangeab
Here's yet another one of those colloquialisms which, despite enjoying relative occurence, you can't seem to find a single lexical reference about.
1 and 2 are hits from Google:
1-[...] Indian looking man appeared in the settlement, and gave on that he was Mr. Horning's son, but his contradictory accounts of himself gained no credencie...
2-[...]Cruel, heartless, she knew, but she never gave on that she actually had heard of these doings,...
Well, the one factual reference I've got may not be, say, arguably acurate, then again it is the only one ever found: a Portuguese dictionary of English idioms. There, the entry "give on" is translated to us literally as "to let notice or perceive". Example given:
3-Don't give on that you know her.
All right. Would anyone have a lexical reference to factually check for legitimacy the examples above?
Thanks!
1 and 2 are hits from Google:
1-[...] Indian looking man appeared in the settlement, and gave on that he was Mr. Horning's son, but his contradictory accounts of himself gained no credencie...
2-[...]Cruel, heartless, she knew, but she never gave on that she actually had heard of these doings,...
Well, the one factual reference I've got may not be, say, arguably acurate, then again it is the only one ever found: a Portuguese dictionary of English idioms. There, the entry "give on" is translated to us literally as "to let notice or perceive". Example given:
3-Don't give on that you know her.
All right. Would anyone have a lexical reference to factually check for legitimacy the examples above?
Thanks!
Responses
| 3 | =let on that |
SafeTex
|
Responses
18 hrs
=let on that
I'm sure that you are right when you say 'convey'
The expression is usually in the negative cos there is the idea of hiding info
The hits are low on internet though cos the more usual expression is
to let on that...
that will give you the hits you want
The expression is usually in the negative cos there is the idea of hiding info
The hits are low on internet though cos the more usual expression is
to let on that...
that will give you the hits you want
Reference:
Peer comment(s):
| neutral |
David Moore (X)
: Half an answer, I feel.
11 hrs
|
Discussion
And yet there's things with much lower occurence, dated or not, still earning their space as entries in modern idioms compiations! Go figure... Thanks a lot to all of you!
And that's another Brit - the use is familiar to me, though I'd not claim it's common either.
Here's another example for your collection, again American:
"However, economists don’t give on that this is what has occurred and what they provide — rather they offer arguments as if from on high as experts who can tell us what policies should be followed."
http://pileusblog.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/needed-non-instru...
There are just enough to suggest that it is a usage that genuinely exists. But the examples are so few and hard to find that it is clearly rare, probably very rare. Further research would be needed to establish how rare, whether it is regional, when it is first attested, etc. This would be a major task and cannot be done just by Googling.
Clearly the usage is the same as 'to let on', which is more familiar to me over here in Europe.
"Martina Sorbara didn’t give on that she was sick until later on in the performance." Ex some random sort of blog: http://queensjournal.ca/blogs/limelight/page/3/?flavour=mobi...
Cf. also the usage 'to give out', in the sense of publish or make known — a clearly similar meaning.
I am familiar with the use of "let on" as in the two examples given in this link.