[Ads-l] "dancing fool" 'a fool for dancing'

[Ben Zimmer]

OED's no help, but here are some notable occurrences of "dancing/dancin'
fool":

"The Dancin' Fool" (1920 silent comedy film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dancin%27_Fool

"The Dancing Fool" (1932 animated cartoon with Betty Boop)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dancing_Fool

"Dancin' Fool" (1974 song by The Guess Who)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancin%27_Fool_(The_Guess_Who_song)

"Dancin' Fool" (1979 song by Frank Zappa)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancin%27_Fool


On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 7:12 PM Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu>
wrote:

> i've stumbled on this formulaic expression in preparing a posting (it
> comes up in a song from the Broadway show "Once Upon a Mattress", a song
> sung by the Jester -- i.e., a fool), and started to track it down, but easy
> places on the net provided nothing useful, and (in my latest computer
> screwup) the OED is at least temporarily unavailable to me.  it isn't
> crucial to my posting, but my curiosity has been piquied...
>
> is there literature about the the history of this expression?  is there a
> history of a larger usage "V-ing fool"?  (or are such occurrences parasitic
> on "dancing fool"?)
>
>

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