Dead Donkey Ears

[Richard Petty Deegan]

Carved in a desk  at St. Mary's High school, NYC area 1961 "TR (Brother
Thomas Raymond) sucks dead seagulls". I've been waiting almost forty years
to see something close.
Rich
----- Original Message -----
From: "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2000 12:02 AM
Subject: Re: Dead Donkey Ears


> 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
>