Hang free or peter out

Today’s adventure in analyzing the jokey allusions in my postings. The target allusion is the one boldfaced in this passage from my posting yesterday (5/13), “The pocket bulge”: [The DJX bulge booster] provides a soft but protective pocket in which a man’s package (of whatever size) can be unconstrained (hang free or peter out, as the slogan goes) I explained half of the joke in a comment about my raw materials for this posting: “Live Free or Die”, the official state motto of New Hampshire But then there’s peter out, a verb of fading (before coming to an end), so ‘fade to death’ here, framed with a pun on peter, with a covert allusion to the penis hanging unconstrained within the bulge booster. The lexical resources. From NOAD: verb peter:: [no object] decrease or fade gradually before coming to an end: the storm had petered out | the economic recovery is in danger of petering out | the sense of optimism fast petered away. ORIGIN mid 19th century: of unknown origin. noun peter:…