It means I'm getting ready to do something. But what I don't understand is where this rather unusual usage of fix comes from. Nothing actually gets fixed! Do you know where this phrase originates? Sense of "tamper with" a fight, a jury, etc. As euphemism for "castrate a pet" it dates from Related: Fixed; fixedly s ; fixing. As used in the OP's question, the phrase "fixing to" amounts to "preparing to. TO FIX.
In popular use, to put in order ; to prepare ; to adjust ; to set or place in the manner desired or most suitable. As to why "fixing to" became popular in place of "preparing to," "getting ready to," or "about to," consider this commentary from Maximilian Schele De Vere, Americanisms: The English of the New World :.
Fix , to, may be safely called the American word of words, since there is probably no action whatever, performed by mind or body, which is not represented at some time or other by the universal term. It has well been called the strongest evidence of that national indolence which avoids the trouble of careful thought at all hazards, and of that restless hurry which ever makes the word welcome that comes up first and saves time.
Whatever is to be made, whatever needs repair, whatever requires arrangement—all is fixed. The farmer fixes his gates, the mechanic his workbench, the seamstress her sewing machine, the fine lady her hair, and the schoolboy his books. The minister forgets to fix his sermon in time, the doctor to fix his medicines, and the lawyer to fix his brief.
At public meetings it is fixed who are to be the candidates for office ; rules are fixed to govern an institution, and when the arrangements are made, the people contentedly say, "Now everything is fixed nicely.
No doubt De Vere would see the emergence of "fixing to" as more evidence of the same national indolence and restless hurry that define the American character and render us uniquely incapable of expressing our ideas well.
Also with out and up. Church Philip's War: He fixes for another Expedition. Livermore in New Hampsh. Eliason Tarheel Talk : Aunt Lizy is just fixing to go to church. Stowe Oldtown Fireside Stories : He was a fixin' out for the voyage. Weekly Republican What a pretty night! The moon is fixing to shine! Atherton Perch of Devil : I meet … schoolgirls … so painted up they look as if they was fixin' … to be bad.
So clearly, the first meaning in this sense was "make the preparations for". This is an extension of the OED's definitions 14a and 14b. Pepys Diary : I found … the armes well fixed, charged, and primed. State Lett. We have in every garrison one gunsmith … who buys arms for us, and fixes them up privately. Dampier New Voy. Examples of finna Ill give credit when its due, but not finna applaud a fish for swimming.
Finna check my ends, finna get this BenzI. Popular now. Who uses finna? Although finna and gonna are similar in meaning, they have subtle differences.
Note This is not meant to be a formal definition of finna like most terms we define on Dictionary. Redefine your inbox with Dictionary. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Planning, expecting and arranging. I'm gonna fix her if she doesn't stop telling lies about me! Revenge and vengefulness. Zoology: veterinary medicine. We saw kids as young as twelve fixing in doorways. Drugs - general words. Phrasal verbs fix sth up.
The result was a fix! I'm in a bit of a fix with the arrangements. Difficult situations and unpleasant experiences. She says the problem is not a new one, and the fix would be easy enough for a government to achieve , if it were willing. There is no quick fix to the organization's problems. Solving and solutions.
He was shaking badly and needed a fix. Do we still have a fix on that jet? You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics: General location and orientation. I need to fix my hair. To fix something such as a race or game or an election is to illegally arrange who will win. Fix the shelf to the wall with screws. I tried to fix the directions in my mind.
Will you fix dinner? We had our cat fixed. Phrasal verbs fix up someone. The website supplies me my daily fix of rock and roll facts. They have fixed the bugs in the software.
A restaurant would have 48 hours to fix the problem or the place could be shut down. You should fix an appointment with your bank manager. I fixed up a meeting with this very powerful person at the BBC.
Customers can fix the amount they pay each month. Steelmakers deny they fix prices. There is no quick fix and it will take many months to re-establish profitable sales growth. IT a small computer program that can repair a problem with software :. When we won the contract , some people thought it was a fix. Market research helps to get a fix on what customers want. Examples of fix. The height originally planned was reduced by ft and definitely fixed at metres.
From the Cambridge English Corpus. In this way the equilibrium can be seen to fix the strategies of the players. We will then go on to the more involved cases where the 'quick fix ' cannot be used; these are not really hard, but simply technical. The stability result i says that the evolution of the capital intensity is uniquely determined by the random fixed point. The weighted mean difference was k2n99 for both the fixed and random effects models. Once such a set is deter1 mined on a reference plane, the surfaces are essentially fixed for the entire flow field.
An appropriate uniqueness condition would be to fix the and surfaces where they interesect the reference plane.
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