Talk:ridden hard and put away wet

Sexual connotation?

I've lived in the South for over 50 years and have heard this phrase on numerous occasions, but I've never heard it used with a sexual connotation like the one suggested by the second definition. I thought this was vandalism at first. Where did this misinterpretation come from? It sounds like a made-up folk etymology that has been passed around on the Internet, in which case, it should be removed. Is there any evidence that anyone really uses this phrase in the completely different way suggested by the second definition in real life? If not, let's correct it so Wiktionary doesn't become the cause of people attributing a perverted meaning to a non-sexual phrase. Thoughts? Metrowestjp (talk) 05:52, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

It doesn't matter whether it was originally made up- if English-speakers somewhere have been using it to mean something, that becomes part of its meaning. Given that pretty much every part of the expression has been used elsewhere as a sexual metaphor, it wouldn't be surprising for someone to have connected the dots and made a sexual innuendo out of it. Someone who doesn't have personal experience with horses would have trouble seeing the innocent side of the expression, so the sexual sense might have taken on a life of its own.

That said, there's no guarantee that anything like that has actually happened. The way to check would be to tag it with {{rfv-sense|en}} and post it at Requests for verification/English. The people there will look for usage that supports the sexual sense, and if they don't find enough, it will be removed. If they do find it, though, the sense will be kept. In that case, you would want to come up with usage notes making it clear that those who use the first sense don't see it as sexual at all. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:05, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice. I'll do as you've suggested. Metrowestjp (talk) 02:52, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

RFV discussion: April–August 2023

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ridden hard and put away wet

Can someone verify whether or not this expression has actually taken on a sexual meaning in common usage as suggested by this second entry? Thanks! Metrowestjp (talk) 03:08, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

The issue isn't really whether it has taken on a sexual sense but exactly what the sexual meaning is - I'd say that there's probably enough citations to be found on GoogleBooks to support the meanings of 'experienced hard sex', 'sexually abused', 'raped' and 'promiscuous'. Many hits can be found if you search for something like 'slut|whore was rode|ridden hard and put away wet' on GoogleBooks. I'll set about adding some examples. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 10:05, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Cited the current sense 2 (see Citations:ridden hard and put away wet). We may want to consider about how to treat similar verbal phrases like 'ride me hard and put me away wet' though. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 11:07, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

It seems somewhat similar to the issue discussed at Wiktionary:Tea_room/2023/March#the_sky_fell_in, but with the addition of an object (me) and not mere inflection. I would redirect as many forms as possible (for findability) to as small a set of lemmas as possible (to avoid duplication). There is also e.g. google books:"ride her hard and put her away wet", so should we create ride hard and put away wet and redirect ride me..., ride her... to there...? or redirect all of them to the past tense form? - -sche (discuss) 05:01, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

It does seem similar, with the added problem that ride hard and put away wet and phrases like ride her hard and put her away wet function as verbs and the past tense forms with rode/ridden function as adjective. Perhaps we should cover it all under ride hard and put away wet and simply define it as a 'phrase' (without specificying whether it's a verbal or adjectival one)? --Overlordnat1 (talk) 14:34, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I can't imagine how the expression with rode is adjectival. And with ridden it is no more or less adjectival than most expression using a past participle. I don't think we can find support for adjectivity (gradability, comparability, different meaning from verb). DCDuring (talk) 14:40, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Don't neglect him. "Romance" novels are full of such variants of the expression in most imaginable inflected forms. The rare or missing forms involve putting (rare at b.g.c.) and puts (not found at b.g.c.). DCDuring (talk) 14:36, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I’ve just created ride someone hard and put them away wet to cover most variations but because a sentence like “I’ve ridden her hard and put her away wet” is theoretically possible and it’s a verb phrase it should be kept separate from the adjectival phrase ridden hard and put away wet IMO. Feel free to improve on my attempt at a resolution if possible. We should probably also create handed their cards and given their cards to complement hand someone their cards and give someone their cards but let’s call ridden hard and put away wet RFV-passed. Overlordnat1 (talk) 09:05, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't see the need for all these his-her-their forms. Dictionary convention is to use one or someone. Equinox ◑ 22:54, 15 August 2023 (UTC)