. . . as a tick

[Charles Doyle]

The proverb dictionaries and the OED cite "tight as a tick" from 1933, "full as a tick" from 1678.

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 03:20:48 -0800
>From: Margaret Lee <mlee303 at YAHOO.COM>
>Subject: Re: "Turtle on a fencepost" (1979)
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
>My mother, who died at 91 in 2001, often used the expression "as tight as a tick" in the sense of being full of food. She was born and raised in Western Virginia.
>
>  Margaret Lee

>
>Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

>  Of these, the only one that I'm familiar with is, "as tight as a tick." My mother, a native of Longview in East Texas, and other elderly colored folk in her age group, ca. ninety years old, use it. The reference is to a tick engorged to the bursting point with its host's blood. At, e.g. a Thanksgiving dinner, old folk say, "No more, thank you. I'm as tight as a tick." It can also mean "tight[-fisted]" and "drunk." I don't recall that it was used much, if at all, by "young" people my age, ca. seventy and over. If the expression is current in Bill's speech, it's probably because he's an Arkansawyer.
>
>-Wilson

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