Give Good X; Shalom Chaver

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>Has there been any work done one the construction "gives good X"? My guess
>is that
>it comes from "gives good head" but as can be seen in the quote below,
>we're a long
>way from that now.
>
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,393879,00.html
>
>...

>"Though no official would ever say it out loud, mourning worked well for
>Clinton: he
>gave good funeral."

"Give X" < "Give head" < "Get [some] head" < "Get [some] tail", I think.

Alternatives include "Get/give skull/face". I suppose Madonna's song
employs a deliberate double-entendre.

While "give good wedding" might be considered simply schoolboy-jocular, I
think "give good funeral", as in the above article, is deliberately mildly
derogatory, with an implicit imputation of
hypocrisy/meretriciousness/whorishness: I think the clause after the colon
in the above quotation is entirely superfluous/gratuitous otherwise. Maybe
we're not so very far from the underlying expression with "head". Do others
share my perception?

-- Doug Wilson