{"id":688,"date":"2019-01-11T14:26:39","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T19:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/?p=688"},"modified":"2019-01-11T14:42:42","modified_gmt":"2019-01-11T19:42:42","slug":"word-of-the-week-lollygag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2019\/01\/11\/word-of-the-week-lollygag\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Week! Lollygag"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2019\/01\/Lazy-Bones.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-689\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2019\/01\/Lazy-Bones-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Lazy Bones Sign\" width=\"443\" height=\"295\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2019\/01\/Lazy-Bones-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2019\/01\/Lazy-Bones.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 443px) 100vw, 443px\" \/><\/a>What a word for the start of the semester. This is the time to work, not lollygag.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to Luci Ortiz of Boatwright Library for this word. I was often accused of lollygagging by my mother, whenever I was to cut the grass or take out the trash, yet somehow found a way to delay the chore as long as possible. To teenaged me, there was no doubt what our strange-sounding term meant.<\/p>\n<p>An <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oed.com\/view\/Entry\/105202?redirectedFrom=lollygag&amp;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">OED search<\/a> reveals the word to be American slang, originating in the 19th Century. The usage frequency given is only 3 of 8: a real pity for such a colorful word. The earliest usage, from 1862 in <em>Harpers<\/em>, gives it as &#8220;lallygag,&#8221; and after that the word settled down to its present spelling, though the original spelling with the letter A continues into the 20th Century. I fear it won&#8217;t live past the 21st.<\/p>\n<p>No one knows its origin.<\/p>\n<p>Best usage, from 1868: &#8220;The lascivious\u00a0<span class=\"quotationKeyword\">lolly-gagging<\/span>\u00a0lumps of licentiousness who disgrace the common decencies of life by their love-sick fawnings at our public dances.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So, slackers, stop dawdling, dilly-dallying, loafing, kicking the can down the road, and above all, do not lollygag. We have work to do.<\/p>\n<p>Please nominate a word or metaphor useful in academic writing by e-mailing me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.<\/p>\n<p>See all of our Metaphors of the Month\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/tag\/metaphor-of-the-month\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>\u00a0and Words of the Week\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/tag\/word-of-the-week\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Creative-Commons image courtesy of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/quinnanya\/16228063354\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Quinn Dombrowski<\/a> at Flickr.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What a word for the start of the semester. This is the time to work, not lollygag. Thanks to Luci Ortiz of Boatwright Library for this word. I was often accused of lollygagging by my mother, whenever I was to cut the grass or take out the trash, yet somehow found a way to delay &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2019\/01\/11\/word-of-the-week-lollygag\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Word of the Week! Lollygag<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":589,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1172,40197],"tags":[2522],"class_list":["post-688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language","category-vocabulary","tag-word-of-the-week"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcsCNV-b6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/589"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}