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In Steins;Gate episode 1 (English dub version), Daru says to Okabe

How can you be surprised? You were rantin' sideways about it this morning, said the doc got cold feet.

What does "rantin' sideways" mean in this context and how could I have inferred its meaning from the words itself, if possible?

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I assume you know what ranting means. Here’s sideways, from the OED:

1.d. colloquial. As an intensifier: thoroughly, utterly; excessively, to the limit of one's tolerance. 1956–
[selected attestations]
1956   There was nothing anybody in California could show me, anything there was doing out there I'd seen before and sideways. —‘B. Holiday’ & W. Dufty, Lady Sings the Blues x. 110
1974   Broadstairs bored him sideways, and he taught me to press on. —Times 9 February 11

So: ranting excessively.

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  • I find “anything there was doing out there” more strange in the example from 1956. I’ve confirmed that that is how it’s written in the OED, but I can’t find the book accessible anywhere to check if it’s perhaps a misquote. Commented Nov 5 at 23:21
  • @JanusBahsJacquet — Are you able to access this? archive.org/details/ladysingsblues0000holi/page/106/mode/… Commented Nov 6 at 4:46
  • Ah, it works with the search – didn’t try that! So it is as printed in the book. Completely ungrammatical and strange to me, but I suppose the first there is acting as a standin for that (subordinator)? Or perhaps even they? Is that a known feature of some dialect (or AAVE)? Commented Nov 6 at 11:36
  • @JanusBahsJacquet — doing means happening: “anything there was happening out there I'd seen before...” Compare, for example, the multiple instances of was doing at gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2613/pg2613-images.html. Also, “what’s doing” etc.. Commented Nov 6 at 19:37
  • “Anything there was happening” is equally ungrammatical to me. It looks like it’s meant to be a relative clause based on an existential construction where what is happening is the displaced subject, i.e., “there was [something] happening out there”. But (the head of) a displaced subject like that cannot be extracted out of the embedded clause as an antecedent. “X is happening out there” → “(the) X that is happening out there” is fine (subject not displaced); but “there is X happening” → “*(the) X (that?) there is happening” is not possible in English, at least not to me. Commented Nov 6 at 21:36
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"Ranting sideways" doesn't appear to be a recognised idiom, so we take it at face value.

Dictionary definitions you should take note of:

  • "In a devious, indirect, or roundabout way" - Oxford
  • "in a lateral or indirect manner" - Websters

I would understand it to mean that the "ranting" was so frenzied it was not properly directed at anything or anyone. The recongised idiom "ranting and raving" carries a similar meaning - that the ranting is so angry it is uncontrolled. A person 'ranting and raving' may appear to be talking into the air, moving erratically, so that they are not looking or speaking directly at any one individual.

I should also add that "sideways" appears to be used more casually as an intensifier, perhaps with less regard for the above definitions. I can tell you that, here in the UK, we use the expression "raining sideways" to mean exceedingly heavy rain, although there is also some literal meaning to this as wind-driven rain does appear to come at you horizontally. It seems possible that could be one origin of it as an intensifier.

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    I wouldn't even bother trying to mention internet hits. Commented Nov 2 at 21:04
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    I don't think ranting sideways itself is an idiom - rather, the colloquial sideways can be applied as an intensifier to any action, and in OP's case it happened to land on ranting. Commented Nov 3 at 3:03
  • @Lambie I'm teaching a man to fish.# Commented Nov 3 at 8:37
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    Well, it's a translation of Japanese anime, so I wouldn't put too much stock in it. One wonders why they use rantin' without the g. Commented Nov 3 at 13:38
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    @Lambie - Unless the rest of the translation is equally weird, I’m going to risk saying that this may be an example of a good translator, not a bad one. The English text has a “rural American” flavour to it, so I suspect the translator chose this English speech style to convey the same connotations that the original Japanese accent/dialect had. I don’t know Japanese, but a bit of searching reveals that the dialect of the Tōhoku region of Japan (northern part of Honshū) is typically used as a shorthand for “rural” characters in Japanese media, so that may be the source here. Commented Nov 5 at 12:05

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