Tanking?

Question

Can anyone tell me what "tanking" means in the following excerpt?

June 21, 2005-With the Downing Street Minutes that unmask his lies, with his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq lost, with his poll numbers tumbling, with Republicans jumping ship, with the economy tanking and with parents shielding their children from his military recruiters, why is George W. Bush still smiling, swaggering and acting like the dictator he hopes to become?

Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Can anyone tell me what "tanking" means in the following excerpt?(snip excerpt)[/nq]
It means going *** up.
Will.

Usenet · Answer

Steve Hayes (Email Removed) has kindly taken time out from organising some kind of mutiny of preverts to say...
[nq:1]Can anyone tell me what "tanking" means in the following excerpt? June 21, 2005-With the Downing Street Minutes that unmask ... his military recruiters, why is George W. Bush still smiling, swaggering and acting like the dictator he hopes to become?[/nq]
In this context, "tanking" means "collapsing", "worsening significantly", just basically "going to ***".

"Dear me, what a strange place to put a walrus!"
- Baron Greenback, /Danger Mouse/
http://donotuselifts.net/

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Can anyone tell me what "tanking" means in the following ... swaggering and acting like the dictator he hopes to become?[/nq]
[nq:1]In this context, "tanking" means "collapsing", "worsening significantly", just basically "going to ***". From "go into the tank", what John ... doing so deliberately. The author is probably not suggesting a conspiracy to ruin the U.S. economy. Don't get me started.[/nq]
The noun "tank" here meant "swimming pool" and otherwise survives only in "tank top" (the kind of shirt you can wear swimming) and "tanker", a competitive swimmer, which survived in student newspapers twenty years ago, anyway. However, it gives me Stuck Poetry Syndrome.

Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores
Squats outside the Convent bank
With Sanchicha, telling stories,
Steeping tresses in the tank,
Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,
- Can't I see his dead eye glow,
Bright as 'twere a Barbary corsair's?
(That is, if he'd let it show!)
Robert Browning, "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloisters", thanks to

Liston dives in the tank,
Lord, in Lewiston, Maine,
And Ernie Doty's drunk
In **** again.
James Wright, "Speak"
Despite the appearance of the second extract, "Speak" is one of my favorite poems of all time.

Jerry Friedman

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Can anyone tell me what "tanking" means in the following excerpt?[/nq]
[nq:1](snip excerpt) It means going *** up.[/nq]
Supine, then?

Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]exuberant synonym for "dive" or "take a dive", in turn an exuberant synonym for "take a fall", to lose a ... "tanker", a competitive swimmer, which survived in student newspapers twenty years ago, anyway. However, it gives me Stuck Poetry Syndrome.[/nq]
Interesting, because I have hitherto associated "tank top" with tracked military vehicles steered by their tracks, and thought it was called that because it was worn by the crews of such vehicles because it was do hot inside.
And for me the verb "to tank" suggested filling one's car with petrol, from seeing German advertisements to that effect, though the idiom did not seem to have passed into English. If someone said "the economy is tanking" I would have assumed that it mean something like "peaking" or "hitting its stride", but the context of the extract I posted suggested otherwise, which is why I asked.
How common is it as an idiom?

Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]And for me the verb "to tank" suggested filling one's car with petrol, from seeing German advertisements to that effect, ... context of the extract I posted suggested otherwise, which is why I asked. How common is it as an idiom?[/nq]
A synapse has closed. WIWAL, BrE had the expression "to tank about", implying, as I remember it, slightly indiscriminate or happy-go-lucky automobilism. E.g., "He tanks about in a smooth Alvis." I even have a faint sense that it may have been possible to tank about on foot or on a bike, but I could be wrong. It must, I suppose, come from military tanks squealing about the place with the usual cavalry or cavalier attitude.

Mike.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]And for me the verb "to tank" suggested filling one's ... why I asked. How common is it as an idiom?[/nq]
[nq:1]A synapse has closed. WIWAL, BrE had the expression "to tank about", implying, as I remember it, slightly indiscriminate or ... wrong. It must, I suppose, come from military tanks squealing about the place with the usual cavalry or cavalier attitude.[/nq]
And, of course, "tanking down the M1" indicates great speed.
Ray

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2] A synapse has closed. WIWAL, BrE had the expression ... about the place with the usual cavalry or cavalier attitude.[/nq]
[nq:1]And, of course, "tanking down the M1" indicates great speed..using the pillion seat and rear footrests, chin on the filler cap and hands on the dropped bars.[/nq]
Paul
In bocca al Lupo!

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]The noun "tank" here meant "swimming pool" and otherwise survives ... years ago, anyway. However, it gives me Stuck Poetry Syndrome.[/nq]
[nq:1]Interesting, because I have hitherto associated "tank top" with tracked military vehicles steered by their tracks, and thought it was called that because it was worn by the crews of such vehicles because it was do hot inside.[/nq]
The timing would be about right; RHUD dates "tank top" to 1945-50. But OED connects it with the water-holding kind of tank, not the armored variety.
[nq:1]And for me the verb "to tank" suggested filling one's car with petrol, from seeing German advertisements to that effect, though the idiom did not seem to have passed into English.[/nq]
"Tank up", meaning to fill a fuel tank, seems familiar to me, though I wouldn't use it myself.
[nq:1]If someone said "the economy is tanking" I would have assumed that it mean something like "peaking" or "hitting its stride", but the context of the extract I posted suggested otherwise, which is why I asked. How common is it as an idiom?[/nq]
It's fairly common in my experience not rare enough to be noticed when I hear it. Google finds 16,000 hits for "is tanking", most of which are related to economics. "Economy is tanking" gets 4,300 hits.

Ray Heindl
(remove the Xs to reply)

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]exuberant synonym for "dive" or "take a dive", in turn ... years ago, anyway. However, it gives me Stuck Poetry Syndrome.[/nq]
[nq:1]Interesting, because I have hitherto associated "tank top" with tracked military vehicles steered by their tracks, and thought it was called that because it was worn by the crews of such vehicles because it was do hot inside.[/nq]
Well, I have to admit that I'm not as sure as I sounded. Wikipedia says,
'In American English a tank top is a sleeveless shirt that can be worn by either ***. The term is also used in Australian English, however the term singlet is more common. The name derives from its resemblance to a tank suit, a style of one-piece women's swimsuit with shoulder straps. ("Tank suit" in turn refers to "swimming tank," an obsolete term for what are now called "swimming pools.")
(snip)
'Elsewhere, the term singlet or vest may be used.
'In British English a tank top denotes a sleeveless pullover.'

But they don't cite any better authority than I did.
[nq:1]And for me the verb "to tank" suggested filling one's car with petrol, from seeing German advertisements to that effect, ... context of the extract I posted suggested otherwise, which is why I asked. How common is it as an idiom?[/nq]
I'll agree with others that it's fairly common in the U.S. I first heard it in the mid '80s when a friend was playing the stock market and referred to some stocks as "tanking". I think it was pretty common then in Wall Street newsletters and the like.

Jerry Friedman

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