Itty bitty...

[Wilson Gray]

FWIW, I first heard this spoken by "Prof. Irwin Corey, the world's
foremost authority," at the Redd Foxx night club in Los Angeles
ca.1965. The Prof was opening for Flip Wilson. My date was Valerie
Redd, who shortly thereafter became one of Flip's spare pieces of
pussy. This was probably my closest brush with greatness, having the
celebrated Flip Wilson tapping the same ass that I was. Of course, I
was, at the time, not immediately made fully aware of this
six-degrees-of-separation connection with the late, great comedian.
But, depite the tone of this post, I'm not bitter,,

-Wilson

On 1/25/07, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Itty bitty...
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 1/25/07, Scot LaFaive <spiderrmonkey at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Anyone know of the use of "itty bitty titty committee" prior to 1992? I
> > found one from Google Groups (nice new look) from '92.
>
> Tantalizingly close, from a 1983 article by Martin Gardner in _Word
> Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics_:
>
> "And have you heard of IBTA, an organization opposed to topless
> swimsuits? The letters stand for the Itty Bitty Titty Association."
>
> The article ("Kickshaws")  also appears in the anthology _Gardner's
> Whys & Wherefores_:
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1573927449/
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
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>


--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

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