"tooth and neck"

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:37 AM -0700 9/17/08, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>Jeff Shaumeyer, on his blog (http://bearcastle.com/blog/?p=1245)
>reporting on "tooth and neck" in an episode of This American Life on
>NPR:
>it happened about 8 minutes and 41 seconds into the piece. One Mike
>Garner, of Silver State Mortgage in Nevada, was talking about how Wall
>Street kept lowering its standards for mortgage qualification in order
>to increase the number of mortgages written to feed the investment
>monster. They were so desperate that they finally worked their way
>down to the "NINA", or "No Income-No Assets', apparently AKA "the
>liar's loan". Garner, speaking of his boss, who thought this was
>financial craziness, said
>
>"He hated those loans  He fought the owners and sales force tooth and
>neck about these guidelines."
>
>.....
>
>jeff googled up a few more (legitimate) examples.
>
>blend of "tooth and nail" and "neck and neck", maybe.
>
Seems like a plausible candidate for an online
blend.  On the other hand, maybe if this catches
on it will be reanalyzed as "fought [them] tooth
in neck", pitbull-style...


LH

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