"Beard" = 'cover story' without gay/straight context

[Jim Parish]

If I recall correctly, the word was used in a non(gay/straight) context in
an episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" some years back; I'm away from home
and can't check at the moment, but it was a Halloween episode, either season
two (which would make it 1997) or season four (1999). In the scene, Buffy's
mother commented that her (Buffy's) father used to love taking her
trick-or-treating; Buffy said something to the effect that he loved the
candy, and she was just the beard. (I'll be home in a couple of days; I'll
be able to give more precise information then.)

Jim Parish

Quoting "Mark A. Mandel" <mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU>:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mark A. Mandel" <mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      "Beard" = 'cover story' without gay/straight context
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Heard on NPR's "Le Show", 2004-12-19, song titled "Christmas in Oblivion"
> about Bernie Kerik*: "A nanny would make a good beard". Referring to Kerik's
> apparent invention of an undocumented nanny as an explanation for his sudden
> departure from prominence, preferable to the revelation that he had risen in
> the first place merely as an incompetent and ethically impaired friend of
> the boss.
>
> *Dragon NaturallySpeaking initially misrecognized this name as "dirty
> character". Artificial intelligence?
>
> -- Mark A. Mandel
> [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.]
>



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