Reporter's query on "give the shirt off one's back"

Cohen, Gerald Leonard gcohen at MST.EDU
Fri Jul 24 20:16:27 UTC 2009


Brendan, fyi. --- Gerald (with cc. to ads-l and B. Popik)



>From archives of the American Dialect Society.  The sender was independent scholar Barry Popik.


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<snip>

RUSSIA AS IT REALLY IS
by Carl Joubert
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company
1905 (copyright 1904)
<snip>

Pg. 92:  "To give the shirt off one's back" has become a common metaphorical
phrase in our own country, but I could not believe that it was a form of
benevolence that was actually practised.

<snip>

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