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#78121 08/12/02 10:20 PM
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My husband recently used the phrase "roll it" to suggest that we replace a household item with an updated model. I'd not heard this expression before, but he claims it would be readily understood and/or used by anyone over 35 or so.

Anyone familiar with this phrase or its usage history?



#78122 08/12/02 10:56 PM
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Dear verlangen: I'm 84, and I've never heard it, and I can't find it in any of my phrase
or slang sites. It might be a regional thing. What region would have been involved?


#78123 08/12/02 11:04 PM
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similar, or a shortening I suppose, to what you do with a lease or a loan: roll it over...?



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#78124 08/13/02 02:01 AM
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Verlangen, darned ol' eta beat me to the only idea I had. I'm well over 35, and the thing I'd think of if I heard that with no other context, would be a joint. You write as though English is your first language, though you seem to be in Germany. I am wondering which part of the English-speaking world your huggy (hey--I meant to put "hubby", but I like this better!) is from; perhaps it was heard in Britain, for ex., but not here in the States.


#78125 08/13/02 03:17 AM
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hey, I'm not that ol'!

though I am over 35...





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> Anyone familiar with this phrase or its usage history?

Ah well, this is a slight variation on a few usages I know. Roll is of course a very useful verb. Certain funds can be 'rolled over' for example. Huggy's usage seems to indicate that if something is 'turned over' or 'rolled' then the situation is forced or driven forward. This use of 'to roll' as a transitive verb could also refer (figuratively) to flattening a certain something out though (like rolling dough). Either way it makes plenty of sense to me;-)


...and twice ten tempestuous nights I rolled.


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I'd suggest that it's just a slight misuse of "Roll it" as used by television and film producers, in the sense of "Let's go", "Let's get moving".



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#78128 08/13/02 09:55 AM
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As another over 35, I'd say that I'd have to hear Huggy use the phrase in context. Roll it just all by itself, as Cap Kiwi suggested is one of those phrases like it's raining in which it has no real referent, but if the it refers to the household item, then I am at a loss to come up with what I would think he meant. etaoin's suggestion would make it sound to me like he meant to keep it, possibly with some effort put into refurbishing it, but going by belligerentyouth's idea, he would mean to replace it.


#78129 08/13/02 10:50 AM
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Over 35 here, too: I've never heard "roll it" meaning to get rid of something or replace it. It's certainly understandable in context, but I've never heard the expression.


#78130 08/13/02 12:47 PM
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Happily UNDER 35 and only ever heard 'roll it' from a director's standpoint or when referring to the weed (both previously mentioned).


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