I want to understand what Chandler means when he says he's maxed out after thinking he's embarrassed by his bunny costume.
Learn English – What does ‘to be maxed out’ mean
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The original coinage seems to be from Ira Wolfert's 1943 novel Tucker's People, as...
I'd kill you just as fast as I'd spit a rat out of my mouth, you son of a bitch.
Much later in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1989), Douglas Adams picked it up as...
I have to admit I find Adams' usage "odd". I'd expect the the imagery to focus on how quickly you want that rat out of your mouth, not how far away from your mouth you want to eject it.
Usually when talking about how "[not] far" we trust someone, the image focusses on what a short distance that is (as far as I could throw him). The reader has no special wish to imagine throwing [him] at all - he just knows if he did, it wouldn't be very far. He doesn't "want more" distance; rather he "accepts it will be less".
But on imagining a rat in his mouth, apart from the fact that primarily the reader wants it out fast, he naturally "wants more" distance, because it's repulsive. That's why it's an "odd" usage - the reader's "more distance" inclination works against the writer's "less distance" intention.
The "spit a rat" usage isn't particularly common anyway, but (possibly because Adams is more well-known than Wolfert), the "not far" sense seems more prevalent than "very fast".
I agree with Joel Brown that Adams' was probably being deliberately quirky, and knew he was mangling the original meaning (it's almost a "mixed metaphor" to me). But I doubt he expected it to be so closely scrutinised - here on ELU, or anywhere else for that matter!
I would have never thought this expression had anything to do with duels, or guessed that dueling was the origin of this expression. After analyzing the phrase, though, I can see how that might be the case.
When I've heard this expression, it's been used to describe a situation where:
- a group of people were gathered
- one person said something that another person felt wasn't accurate
- that other person publicly challenged the first person's claim
For example, I might recount the events of a meeting, and tell my coworkers:
In the meeting, Ralph said, "In the past two years, nobody has had more sales than I've had," but I called him out on it.
That would imply I publicly disagreed with Ralph in the meeting, putting pressure on him to either back up his claim with hard data, or else recant his statement altogether.
I doubt I'd actually use the phrase "call you out" in the meeting. In other words, I'd be unlikely to say to Ralph:
I'd like to call you out on that.
Instead, if I think Ralph's statement isn't entirely accurate, I might say something like:
Really? You think you're the top salesperson? By what standard? I'd like to see those numbers.
and then use the "called him out" expression later when describing what happened in the meeting.
I suppose that's a form of challenge, as Bill said, but I wouldn't consider that the same as inviting Ralph into the parking lot to settle matters. I'd say a roughly equivalent expression my be call to account, which one dictionary defines as:
call to account 1. To challenge or contest. 2. To hold answerable for.
Also, in the case where I think someone is deliberately lying, I might use the phrase call someone's bluff, which means:
call someone's bluff to challenge someone to give proof of his claims
I don't think I'd use the bluff expression in my example, though, unless I thought Ralph was simply lying outright. Deciding who has had the most sales can be a tricky business: are we measuring by the number of sales, the amount of revenue generated, or the amount of profit that's been earned? Ralph could indeed be at the top of one of those categories; in my hypothetical scenario, perhaps I don't think he's lying per se, but I think he might not be telling the whole story, either.
Getting back to the usage in the Times, the bluff idiom doesn't apply, because the former pope was being called out on his behavior, not some claim he was making.
If I was asked to reword the statement, I might suggest:
After about ten minutes of suffering through Benedict’s sighing and eye-rolling, Francis openly rebuked him for it.
which I think would convey roughly the same sentiment as the original.
Best Answer
He's reached his limit or maximum. He's exhausted and therefore impervious to embarrassment (not the other way around, i.e., he's embarrassed and therefore maxed out).