markers and rats

George Thompson george.thompson at NYU.EDU
Wed Jan 20 15:42:25 UTC 2010


>From Monday's NYTimes; an interview with a guy who owns a fish restaurant, remembering visits to the Fulton Fish Market as a child, with his father:
Most unforgettable character: Artie Behrens only sold markers; you never saw the rats. [Translation from fish-market speak: He sold only the biggest and best fish, never throwaways.]

The translation in [] is not my commentary, but was offered by the Times.
This is copied from the Times' website: I saw in in the grubby old paper copy on Monday, but forgot to save it, and so don't have the section or page reference.

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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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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