colder than a witch's tit

[Wilson Gray]

On Apr 1, 2005, at 1:45 PM, Mark A. Mandel wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mark A. Mandel" <mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: colder than a witch's tit
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> dInIs contributes:
>>>>
> Colder'n a witch's tit in a brass bra on a frosty Halloween
>   and
> Colder'n a well-digger's ass in the Klondike
> <<<
>
> My equal time version is "colder than a warlock's wand".
>
> -- Mark
> [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.]
>

I first heard this one when I was grad student. I found it totally
apropos at the time and I still like it:

"Colder than a landlord's heart."

FWIW, I've also heard boners referred to "as harder than a landlord's
heart."

Speaking of "boners," what's up with the phrase, "pull a boner"? I've
known this phrase with the meaning, "make an egregious error" for as
far back as I can remember. But it wasn't till 1969 that I first heard
the term "boner" used outside of "pull a ..." as an independent word
and in its ithyphallic sense. OTOH, I've been familiar with the phrase,
"on the bone," with the meaning "ithyphallic" since I was in grade
school, i.e. pre-1950.

BTW, the question here is whether there's any connection between these
two boners.

-Wilson Gray