to run out of x

[Ser]

I've heard "to get it up" tons of times (especially in the expression "[sb] can't get it up"), but "[my/his...] cock is up" sounds like it's from a non-native. The Canadian guy in question wrote "English / Other" in the "Languages" part of his profile, and he also wrote *"Life to the extend !!!!!!" in "Education", so...

[linguoboy]

My case is simply "people use it". A particular video from xvideos is by a guy from Canada, and it is titled by him, so where it is hosted is irrelevant.

Just because he's "from Canada" doesn't mean he's a native speaker of English. Not everyone there is. (In fact, nearly 30% of the population is foreign born and fully a third normally use a language other than English in the home.)

Other than that, you're not being reasonable. A novel is not the optimal place for sex slang - porn websites are, or fanfictions written by natives which depict pornography, which is probably where I've read it before.

Okay, give me a citation from one of those.

Also, linguoboy, nobody says it's a big deal, nobody should behave like it is either. Don't jump at the assumption everything sex-related is a joke, that's infantile. And most certainly don't go on with that assumption when specified the contrary. You may offer a more or less sympathetic hearing when you feel certain criteria are met (which can be misled - your asking for a novel here... well); but what you offered here to me was hostility to begin with.

I think you misunderstood my "caer del nido" comment. You told me to Google a phrase that your yourself admit is "sex slang". That's exactly the kind of thing people tell other people to do as a prank, so it's not like my assumptions came from some inexplicable place of hostility. I was just telling you I'm not foolish enough to do that when posting from a work computer. In his response, Torco actually put some effort into analysing the data and drawing preliminary conclusions which he shared with us, which I think is not unreasonable to expect in a discussion like this.

I'm sorry if my comments came across as mean. I didn't mean to be dismissive, but--believe me--I've talked a fair bit about cocks in my time and I have simply never heard this phrase from another native speaker of English in my life. That's not to say that no one uses it, but it does suggest that it may not be widespread enough to really merit mentioning in a thread which has nothing at all to do with "sex slang".

But most importantly, you still haven't presented any solid evidence for a novel definition of "up". Find an example of something which can become erect without becoming elevated as well (nipples, for instance) and then perhaps you can begin building a case.

[Thry]

I've heard "to get it up" tons of times (especially in the expression "[sb] can't get it up"), but "[my/his...] cock is up" sounds like it's from a non-native. The Canadian guy in question wrote "English / Other" in the "Languages" part of his profile, and he also wrote *"Life to the extend !!!!!!" in "Education", so...

lol! Good catch. I hadn't noticed. Doesn't he live in your area hahahaha?

Linguoboy, yes, I misunderstood the nido thing. I had thought you were implying I was joking and that you were confident I wasn't arguing this seriously. In that case, sorry.

I thought it was worth mentioning because Terra asked "is up used with any other nouns", and that came to mind. I think it is appropriate, if true, but I'm not a native a speaker and I can certainly be wrong. I'm not saying it's a novel usage, I just said it would be slightly different from that of just meaning "elevated" because of its particular nature (I did say you could include it in the same category, if you stretch it). I don't know in which exact fanfiction I read it, so I cannot link you to it, but if I ever come across it again I will take note.

[Miekko]

Swedish, få slut på x - literary get end on x.

Also, ha slut på x - have an end on x. Also, x can 'ta slut'. (Take end), or . Dialectally, X är all also exists and this also appears to some limited extent in the standard language, c.f. the idiom "nu är (noun)s saga all".

[linguoboy]

Swedish, få slut på x - literary get end on x.

Also, ha slut på x - have an end on x. Also, x can 'ta slut'. (Take end), or . Dialectally, X är all also exists and this also appears to some limited extent in the standard language, c.f. the idiom "nu är (noun)s saga all".

Is this in dialects with some exposure to colloquial German? I'm wondering if this could be a borrowing or if it originated independently.

[Yng]

Syrian Arabic just has /xa:lis_k/ or /xilis_k/ 'finish': /xilis_k ilHali:b/ 'the milk has finished', /ilHali:b xa:lis_k\/ 'the milk's finished'. The sortoftransitive version (the division of semantics is a bit more complicated than that) /xallas_k/ is used (as in English 'finish') for 'run out of': /xallas_k\na lHali:b/ 'we've finished the milk'.

There's also a (literary?) verb نفذ /nafida/ which I've seen once or twice in literary contexts meaning 'to run out'; it has a derived causative /anfada/ meaning 'to use up, to exhaust' (thanks dictionary!) Never heard this in colloquial usage, though.

[Miekko]

Swedish, få slut på x - literary get end on x.

Also, ha slut på x - have an end on x. Also, x can 'ta slut'. (Take end), or . Dialectally, X är all also exists and this also appears to some limited extent in the standard language, c.f. the idiom "nu är (noun)s saga all".

Is this in dialects with some exposure to colloquial German? I'm wondering if this could be a borrowing or if it originated independently.

I don't think Ostrobothnian has had particularly much in ways of contact with Germany. OTOH, German contacts have had a greater influence on Finnish political philosophy, religious thought and so on since 1809 than they've had in Sweden (Sweden and Norway have been more influenced by anglophone political philosophy, anglophone religious currents, anglophone musical aesthethics, etc), so it's not entirely impossible.

This construction has boggled me in much the same way it boggles you. My guess is similar to yours, although I've also considered whether it might originate in something more like 'that was all the milk' -> 'the milk is all'. I've also heard it for things that are worn out, though, like, somewhat markedly 'the body is all' to express that you're really really exhausted, same goes for vehicles and so on.

[Yng]

Also observed in the wild today: القهوة مقطوعة əl-ʾahwe məʾṭūʿa (/əl?ahwe mə?t_k\u:?\a/ for those interested) 'the coffee is cut', i.e. has run out. Probably connected closely to e.g. nʔaṭaʿ 'to be cut off' (e.g. of electricity), a derived passive form of ʔaṭaʿ 'to cut' of which məʾṭūʿ is the passive participle.

[jal]

Dutch has: x is op (meaning x is up, in the sense of used up).
These, I'd imagine, come from the verbal prefix op-, as in opeten (lit. to eat up, to finish a meal or item), opdrinken (to drink up) and opmaken (lit. to make up, but it means to use up).
So it's very similar to 'verb + up' in English, but used more consistently and in more situations. We can say things like "mom, the toilet paper is up!" ;)

Yeah, "op" is a really useful telic particle. There's another such particle, "af", which means "finished" in the sense of a job finished (which is quite productive, as evidenced by my youngest daughter (aged 3) recently saying "ik moet dit nog even aflijmen").

Though perfective "we're out of X" is translated well with "X is op", I'm having trouble translating the dynamic aspect of "to run out of X" in Dutch, especially when used progressively ("we're running out of / we've almost run out of X"). I can only think of the static "X is bijna op", but it doesn't quite get the "and there's less and less of it" sense the English does.


JAL

[hwhatting]

Russian is one of those languages that use some variation of "to end, finish" - it has кончился (-лась / -лось / лись) "finished him (her/itself / themselves), e.g. молоко кончилось "the milk has run out" with у "near, at" + Gen. indicating who has run out of something, e.g. у меня молоко кончилось "I've run out of milk".