Re[2]: [tied] 'BLOW UP' = 'EXPLOSION' was re: Push (3)

At 3:15:28 AM on Monday, January 12, 2009, G&P wrote:

>>Why English 'blow' has the meaning 'explode' beside 'the
>>motion of the air'?

> I remember as a child being puzzled by that use of "blow"
> where I expected "blow up". I suppose it's possible "blow"
> is simply a shortening.

The two appear at essentially the same time. The earliest
OED citations are:

'They may ... blow uppe the mines of their adversaries.'
1599

1602: 'I will delve one yard below their mines And blow
them at the moon.' (Shakespeare, 'Hamlet')

> In this context, I cannot resist telling you of a Japanese
> manual that warned me not to put batteries in the fire, or
> they might blow off. (For non-native speakers, that has an
> entirely different meaning, connected with flatulence.)

I believe that that's primarily a British usage. Apart from
the expression 'to blow off steam', the usual idiomatic
meanings of 'to blow off' in the U.S. are:

(a) to rebuff, to reject the advances of (a person); to
ignore, disregard, dismiss;

(b) to shirk or evade (a job or duty), to stay away from
(school or work) without permission or good reason.

(a) 'Jeff called her, and she blew him off.'

(b) 'Of course he flunked! He completely blew off finals.'
('Finals' = 'final exams'.)

Brian