Susan in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, recalls that when someone looked less than presentable, her mother would tell them they looked like who did it and ran. Variants include who did it and ran away or who messed you up and ran away. The common thread is the suggestion that some kind of altercation occurred and the person who’s still present was on the losing end. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Who Did It And Ran”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Susan Ginter. I live in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
Hello, Susan. Welcome to the show.
Hi, Susan.
My mother, when she wanted to indicate that she thought someone was not presentable enough to be seen in public, she would say, you look like death warmed over or you look like who did it and ran.
That’s pretty evocative.
Yeah, and I have never heard you look like who did it and ran from anyone else in my mother’s family. And when I mention it to other people, they don’t seem to have heard of it before. And I wondered if you might be able to fill me in.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that one’s been around for a while, at least since the 1940s. I don’t know. Is it any earlier than that, Grant?
No, I don’t have it any earlier than that.
Yeah. Yeah. It’s who did it and ran or who did it and ran away. And if you’re telling somebody they look like who did it and ran, you’re telling them that they look terrible or messed up. It’s almost like a rhetorical question, right? Who messed you up and then ran away? Who who hit you or just just ruined your outfit or whatever?
Do you think because it didn’t turn up until the 40s that it might have been something that that my mother heard on the radio?
Oh, it sure could have been. It sure could have been. And you know what’s interesting about this, and I don’t want to go on too long about this, but as far as I know, very little work has been done to use the scripts of old radio shows to see how much of that slang was in those scripts first before it entered mainstream English.
That would be a cool project for a slang lexicographer. But all of the slang lexicographers would require that those scripts be transcribed professionally and dated professionally, and that’s a huge amount of time and money.
Sounds like a volunteer project for when I retire.
So do you use this expression yourself now?
I do not, except sometimes to myself when I’m looking in the mirror. And I think you have got to do something about yourself before you go out in public. Because you look like who did it and ran.
Thanks for your call. Really appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
All right, take care.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
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