Dead Donkey Ears

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:30 PM -0400 10/5/00, Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote:
>At 12:22 PM 10/5/2000 EDT, Barry Popik wrote:
>>    In the WALL STRET JOURNAL EUROPE, 4 October 2000, pg. 1, col. 1, a Russian
>>declares that his creditors deserve "dead donkey ears."  That is, nothing.
>>
>
>There's kind of a silly curse that pops up occasionally on bathroom walls in
>the U.S., to the effect that "x [person, thing] sucks dead donkey dicks." I
>don't know what the exact logic of the phrase is, beyond the obvious sonic
>effects and the not exactly subtle attempt to degrade, but perhaps there is
>some kind of connection with the phrase you cite -- if not a genetic
>connection then maybe just a conceptual overlap, i.e., the "dead donkey"
>image as degrading.
>
Then there are those donkey years (or donkey's years) that something
hasn't happened in.  Presumably this measure of time (why it's
donkey's rather than, say, the more numerous-per-capita tortoise's
years) was prompted by the implicit pun.   Perhaps we could mix and
match--"Those creditors will get money from me in dead donkey's
years".

larry