"toke the wild hair"

[Mark A Mandel]

ISTM that "toke" could be a misspelling/mishearing of "took". From the
informant, Theresa:

#>YOU are so funny!!!!!!  The phase "toke the wild hair" is a French saying.
#>I have lived by hearing people say I toke the wild hair and did this or
#>that????
#>When you use this terminalogy it means that you never thought about what you
#>were going to do you just do it, without thought of anything?  And really
#>not to worry about the outcome of what you were going to do.  The
#>French people use this especially in the shrimping, seafood
#>industry.  As you can see I really dont use it often.  It is fun to
#>use it sometimes.  The cajun people have a vocabulary of their own.
#>It is a mixture of Prussian French and Cajun Louisiana French plus
#>mixed with English, now you have a combination of some saying. In my
#>case mix some Spanish in there and now you really have a
#>combination. ...

Note, "it means that you never thought about...", past tense, consistent
with "toke" as = "took". Note also in general the somewhat erratic
English, and the implication in the last line that Theresa's native
language is Spanish, which makes the mishearing/misspelling more
plausible than it would be in a native English-speaker. (And "Prussian"
French?! Maybe "Parisian"?)

I think the spelling "toke" has led us off on a wild goose chase, to
change the species of the beast: I still think this is a hare in origin.

-- Mark A. Mandel
   Linguist at Large

On Mon, 3 Jun 2002, Gerald Cohen wrote:

#>YOU are so funny!!!!!!  The phase "toke the wild hair" is a French saying.
#>I have lived by hearing people say I toke the wild hair and did this or
#>that????
#>When you use this terminalogy it means that you never thought about what you
#>were going to do you just do it, without thought of anything?  And really
#>not to worry about the outcome of what you were going to do.   The
#>French people use this especially in the shrimping, seafood
#>industry.  As you can see I really dont use it often.  It is fun to
#>use it sometimes.  The cajun people have a vocabulary of their own.
#>It is a mixture of Prussian French and Cajun Louisiana French plus
#>mixed with English, now you have a combination of some saying. In my
#>case mix some Spanish in there and now you really have a
#>combination. ...
#
#>  Love Theresa
#