Earliest Citation for "Who's Your Daddy?"

[Page Stephens]

As a person who attended Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana from 1961
to 1965 I once invented a faux etymology or at least I think I did of the
word "Hoosier"

According to my faux etymology I suggested that it came from "I know your ma
but who's your pa."

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if someone else had invented this
obvious play on words before I did but I have no knowledge that anyone did.

This brings me to a couple phrases which were current during my time at
Wabash.

The first is "Indianapolis is the asshole of the Earth and Crawfordsville is
44 miles up it." which refers to the distance between Naptown as we called
Indianapolis and Crawfordsville.

The second refers to Crawfordsville's claim to be "The Athens of the
Midwest"--I own a wine cup which has this inscribed on it..

This is probably idiosyncratic but a college friend of mine who was from
Baltimore once said that those who live in Crawfordsville tend to lisp and
thus are not able to pronounce the word "asshole" correctly.

Looking for answers to the origins of these phrases and words I am,

Page Stephens





----- Original Message -----
From: <AAllan at AOL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 7:47 AM
Subject: Re: Earliest Citation for "Who's Your Daddy?"


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       AAllan at AOL.COM
> Subject:      Re: Earliest Citation for "Who's Your Daddy?"
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> Don't forget one of the purported origins of the 19th-century "Hoosier".
>
> - Allan Metcalf