[Ads-l] New to me: "use the whole buffalo"

[Joel S. Berson]

Seems less related to "going whole hog" than to 
"using everything but the squeal".  Was there not 
an essay on that subject?  I vaguely remember my 
mother the high school English teacher telling me about it.

Joel

At 2/13/2015 08:31 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

>Heard on an L&O - CI season 3 (2003) re-run:
>
>D'Onofrio's character, Det. Goren, referencing the victim, says:
>
>"He had no ID, no cell phone, no watch. Punks _used the whole buffalo_."
>
>This variant of the cliches of the "whole hog" / "whole [numeral] yards"
>class seems to be relatively recent.
>
>The above is the oldest derived use that I can find with a date.
>
>Below is the earliest literal use that I found.
>
>Hawaii Pono Journal - Volume 1 - Page 131
>https://books.google.com/books?id=jXTxAAAAMAAJ
>1970 - ‎Snippet view - ‎More editions
>Moreover, they _used the whole buffalo_, not only the hide.
>
>  I also found,
>
>"'They used the whole buffalo,' so to speak,"
>
>which suggests derivation. But, without any context or a date more specific
>than "21st century,"
>
>Youneverknow.
>
>--
>-Wilson
>-----
>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.
>-Mark Twain
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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