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From here:

"With Hurricane Irma’s eye set on the Georgia coast on Thursday, 19-year-old Georgia Southern sophomore Jessica Lewis was getting out of dodge and heading home to Atlanta."

At first I thought it was Dodge, referring to the car make. But the initial "d" is not capitalized. Plus, it would have been "her Dodge".

The noun "dodge" means a cunning move to avoid something, so how could someone "get out of dodge", where dodge is a non-count noun.

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    Did you Google your question title? ell.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic
    – elmer007
    Nov 19, 2017 at 6:34
  • Someone edited my comment? I'm sorry, I did not put that google link. My apologies
    – elmer007
    Nov 20, 2017 at 6:49
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    @elmer007 regardless, I think the link is actually an improvement.
    – NVZ
    Nov 23, 2017 at 3:26

1 Answer 1

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Because the "d" in "Dodge" should have been capitalized. But the "Dodge" being referenced was not a make of car, but rather a place, namely "Dodge City," which was for a few years one of the wildest towns in the "Wild West." It was for a number of years the terminus of the cattle drives from Texas, where the herds met the railroad.

Because Dodge City was a very violent place for a number of years, it was frequently prudent to leave it behind expeditiously.

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    It's an idiomatic expression in American English. Dodge City was a terrible place to be during the times of the Old West; there were a lot of shootouts and duels back then. When a duel was scheduled because a person had shown up someone who was of bad character, it was best to get out of Dodge quickly; therefore, "get out of Dodge" means "get the hell out of here/there fast!"
    – Nick
    Nov 19, 2017 at 4:48
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    The phrase was most likely popularized by the long running TV Western, "Gunsmoke". youtube.com/watch?v=Qfy0cCTqAdY Nov 19, 2017 at 5:43
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    I've read somewhere or other that in Dodge City at its wildest you were less likely to be killed by gunfire than by a drunk mismanaging a horse. But that's not as dramatic. Nov 19, 2017 at 7:41
  • @AntonSherwood That depends on how often it happened. Maybe the town was absolutely crawling with drunks trying to mount horses!
    – Mr Lister
    Nov 19, 2017 at 8:57
  • @ Mr. Lister The town probably was crawling with drunks trying to mount or ride horses. Cowboys who had just been paid after weeks on the trail were likely neither abstemious nor chaste. Nov 19, 2017 at 15:51

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