"Don't shit where you eat" [revisited]

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS has this in the (bowdlerized?) form "spit" from 1924 (with WWI ref.) all the way into the modern world in more extreme form.

  Also with "mess gear" for nautical types and "I hope to .... " as a jocular oath.

  JL

George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: George Thompson
Subject: Re: "Don't shit where you eat" [revisited]
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A friend from graduate school, a veteran of WWII, would remark "don't shit in your mess-kit" or "I'm afraid he's shit in his mess-kit" -- with reference to making a serious blunder.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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