I find the phrase "sexy as hell" ... well... not.
I think this is because it's 100% romance-novelist-speak to me.
You know, the kind of thriller romance novel that features a strong-yet-vulnerable, beautiful-yet-girl-next-door woman investigating some crime she has no business whatsoever getting herself involved in (she is a journalist or a lawyer or a writer or some other kind of person who makes her living with words), while hating, then sleeping with, then eventually falling in love with some tall, dark, handsome tough-guy-with-a-heart-of-gold-once-you-find-it-beneath-his-armor (who is a cop or an FBI agent or a bodyguard or some other kind of person who makes his living with guns) who she is forced to work with. At some point in this story, the previously taciturn or big-talking tough-guy admits to the chick when she walks into the living room wearing only an over-sized t-shirt (or whatever), "You are smart, and beautiful, and sexy as hell, and even though everything in my head is telling me to run away, I can't." Readers, commence vomiting.
Did it originate as a variant of the only somewhat less turn-off phrase "hot as hell," with hot = sexy?
Yes, this is the kind of deep linguistic analysis you've come to depend on Empirical Question for.
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2 comments:
Yes, but how do you feel about "sexy as all get out"?
Hmmm...better than "sexy as f*ck" but only slightly. "Sexy as all get out" sounds like something somebody's dad would say (if life were a Nashville country song). "That Maureen, she's sexy as all get out."
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