Origin of phrase "had it up to here"?
Spiro
--
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contrex
(Title of thread: Origin of phrase "had it up to here")
> Does anyone know how this phrase originated?
You have to visualise someone saying the phrase and, while enunciating
thw word "here" with some vigour, indicating, with a hand held
horizontal with palm down, a level in their throat. They are
indicating that they have figuratively consumed so much of the
annoyance to which they are referring, that it has filled their
stomach and throat. No more, obviously, can be tolerated.
In figures of speech, the human digestive system is sometimes greatly
simplified. When I have had too much beer to drink, I might say that
it is "lapping at my tonsils", even though I would die if that were to
really happen.
Having written the above I looked for further ideas, and was intrigued
to discover that some people indicate their forehead rather than their
throat. My experience in the UK has been that invariably the front of
the neck is the level shown. This agrees well with the phrase "it
makes my gorge rise" which signifies a similar emotion.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&q=phrase+%22had+it+up+to+here%22&meta=
If you want to know who used it first, I rather think that its origin
is lost in the mists of antiquity.
Oleg Lego
>On 5 Apr, 06:07, "Spiro" <agard2...@CDyahoo.com> wrote:
>
>(Title of thread: Origin of phrase "had it up to here")
>
>> Does anyone know how this phrase originated?
>
>You have to visualise someone saying the phrase and, while enunciating
>thw word "here" with some vigour, indicating, with a hand held
>horizontal with palm down, a level in their throat. They are
>indicating that they have figuratively consumed so much of the
>annoyance to which they are referring, that it has filled their
>stomach and throat. No more, obviously, can be tolerated.
>
>In figures of speech, the human digestive system is sometimes greatly
>simplified. When I have had too much beer to drink, I might say that
>it is "lapping at my tonsils", even though I would die if that were to
>really happen.
I have to pee so bad, my back teeth are singing "Anchors Aweigh!"
tinwhistler
> Does anyone know how this phrase originated?
The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, Christine Ammer (Houghton
Mifflin Boston 1997)
Page 289 [Excerpt]
Have had it 1. Also, have had it up to here. Have endured all one can...
All three colloquial usages, which appear to be shortenings of "have
had enough," date from the mid-1900s. [end excerpt]
OED2 has a 1979 citation, but Google-Books has older; eg
Changing Homosexuality in the Male: Treatment for Men Troubled by
Homosexuality - Page 141
by Lawrence J. Hatterer - 1970 - 492 pages
Anyway, all or most of the hard-core sex . . . and that's all it's
been ...
is highly overrated ... or is it that I've satiated myself and had it
up to here ...
--
Aloha ~~~ Ozzie Maland ~~~ San Diego
Juve
declaimed:
>They are
> indicating that they have figuratively consumed so much of the
> annoyance to which they are referring, that it has filled their
> stomach and throat. No more, obviously, can be tolerated.
Anyway, Popeye has a more colorful way of saying it: "That's all I can
stands, and I can't stands no more!"
Donna Richoux
> On Apr 4, 10:07 pm, "Spiro" <agard2...@CDyahoo.com> wrote:
> > Does anyone know how this phrase originated?
[snip]
> OED2 has a 1979 citation, but Google-Books has older; eg
>
> Changing Homosexuality in the Male: Treatment for Men Troubled by
> Homosexuality - Page 141
> by Lawrence J. Hatterer - 1970 - 492 pages
> Anyway, all or most of the hard-core sex . . . and that's all it's been
> ... is highly overrated ... or is it that I've satiated myself and had it
> up to here ...
Checking "I've had it up to here" in Google Books and throwing out the
journals as dubious, gives three books from the 1960s:
Nothing Black But a Cadillac: A Novel - Page 14
by Spence, Raymond - 1969 -
Now I've had it up to here." He stroked the air
above his head. "It's time to get me a piece of what
I want."
Vanished - Page 220
by Fletcher Knebel - 1968 -
"I've had it up to here, Mr. President." He smiled.
The Loser: A Novel - Page 22
by Borden Deal - 1964 -
I've had it up to here, sitting around an office
letting my law rust.
I grew up in the 1960s and it seems to me like a quite ordinary phrase.
When I searched on "i've had it i", I saw indications that "I've had it"
is fairly old with the meaning of "I'm done, my life is over, my career
is through". Probably related.
But the search is complicated by simple statements that a person
remembers having had something before, like a kind of food.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Mike Lyle
[...]
> Checking "I've had it up to here" in Google Books and throwing out the
> journals as dubious, gives three books from the 1960s:
>
> I grew up in the 1960s and it seems to me like a quite ordinary
> phrase.
>
> When I searched on "i've had it i", I saw indications that "I've had
> it" is fairly old with the meaning of "I'm done, my life is over, my
> career is through". Probably related.
>
> But the search is complicated by simple statements that a person
> remembers having had something before, like a kind of food.
I'm getting a feeling that in BrE absolute "had it" meant "finished",
"dead", "haven't a chance", etc, and not "fed up", until some time
during my life -- perhaps as late as the '70s? "I've had it with them"
meant only "They and I have copulated with one another", and aroused
smirks when it appeared in American dialogue. Cf "had it off/away". I
can't even affirm that "fed up" ever came with "to here" in BrE before
then, but expressions like "fed up to the gills" did exist.
The earlier "had it" also came in at least one ornate form: "had [one's]
chips". Whether that came before or after "pissed on [one's] chips" =
"ruined your chance", I don't know, but I suspect before. There was also
"you've had that" = "you've no chance of that".
--
Mike.
--
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tinwhistler
[snip]
> When I searched on "i've had it i", I saw indications that "I've had it"
> is fairly old with the meaning of "I'm done, my life is over, my career
> is through". Probably related.
[snip]
Good posting (and researching and reflecting.) The relationship
between the two different senses is, in my mind, highlighted by a
comment by an old friend who, in his late 80s, repeatedly said, "I'm
still hungry" (ie, hadn't "had it" yet).
Robert Lieblich
[ ... ]
> stomach and throat. No more, obviously, can be tolerated.
>
> In figures of speech, the human digestive system is sometimes greatly
> simplified. When I have had too much beer to drink, I might say that
> it is "lapping at my tonsils", even though I would die if that were to
> really happen.
I'd be pretty embarrassed myself.
[ ... ]
--
Bob Lieblich
Ackcherly, I'm pretty embarrassed by this post
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Checking "I've had it up to here" in Google Books and throwing out the
> journals as dubious, gives three books from the 1960s:
>
> Nothing Black But a Cadillac: A Novel - Page 14
> by Spence, Raymond - 1969 -
> Now I've had it up to here." He stroked the air
> above his head. "It's time to get me a piece of what
> I want."
>
> Vanished - Page 220
> by Fletcher Knebel - 1968 -
> "I've had it up to here, Mr. President." He smiled.
>
> The Loser: A Novel - Page 22
> by Borden Deal - 1964 -
> I've had it up to here, sitting around an office
> letting my law rust.
>
> I grew up in the 1960s and it seems to me like a quite ordinary
> phrase.
It first shows up in the _New York Times_ in a 1962 ad:
If you share these prejudices; if you have had it up to here with
pedestrian trade-journalism you have a home with one of the
nation's major publishers of business magazines. [9/12/1962]
Clearly, the phrase must have been in common use before then, or it
wouldn't have made any sense.
The _LA Times_ pushes it back a couple of years, similarly assuming it
as common:
We won't bore you with a lot of added thoughts on the incident--
you've no doubt had it up to here--but we would like to say we're
happy to see the U.S. credited with a good aggressive action for
once and we'd give a lot to know how the choleric Mr. K explains
to his constituents the fact that U.S. aircraft have been sailing
over their heads with impunity all these years. [5/15/1960]
Checking Google Books further, it shows up in Speed Lamkin's 1959
script for "Comes a Day":
You're damn right nobody did! Well, I'd had it up to here,
hearing about all that blueblood you come from--so this evening I
decided to see for myself!
The Internet Brooadway Database says that the play opened on Broadway
at the Ambassador Theatre on November 6, 1958. And closed on Broadway
28 performances later, on November 29th. (Also, that George C. Scott
got a 1959 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his
performance.)
So it would appear that the genesis is the '50s, at the latest.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
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Richard Maurer
Checking Google Books further, it shows up in
Speed Lamkin's 1959 script for "Comes a Day":
You're damn right nobody did! Well, I'd had it up to here,
hearing about all that blueblood you come from--so this evening I
decided to see for myself!
A predecessor phrase was "I'm fed up to here".
From Google Books:
Death of a Man - Page 138
by Kay Boyle - 1936 - 321 pages
(The 1936 date is tentatively confirmed;
there is a later reprint.)
Then I turn around and have the fun of sliding down it
when I'm fed up to here with anything like exercise."
She sat looking straight ahead through the ...
There are also some versions like
"I'm fed up to my teeth"
or other high up anatomical part.
The complication is that during the 1800s this was
generally seen as a good thing, or was a common phrase
meaning that some people or animals had plenty to eat.
-- ---------------------------------------------
Richard Maurer To reply, remove half
Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Al in Dallas
<ozzie...@post.harvard.edu> wrote:
So, he wasn't *fed up* yet.
--
Al in St. Lou