minnow's dick

[Dennis R. Preston]

Brett Favre sure pulled some game announcers' legs real good
yesterday before the Green Bay-San Francisco game. One of them
(forgot which) said how Brett had told them how slick the field was
(it was raining) before the the game. Brett told them, he reported,
that the field was "as slick as the deck of The Minnow." The
announcer then reminded the audience that "The Minnow" was the name
of the boat in "Gilligan's Island."

What he did not know was that "slick as a minnow's dick" is a common
proverbial comparison in many parts of both the lower and upper
South, and ole Brett was doubtless yukking it up in his helmet when
they innocently put his version out on the national airwaves. Me too.

dInIs

PS: Don't tell me you ain't heard this. I have this from fieldwork as
well as from memory (see an old Orbis article of mine on "proverbial
comparison from the upland South" published fore ya'll were born)
--
Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic,
      Asian & African Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027
e-mail: preston at msu.edu
phone: (517) 353-9290