Another one

[James C Stalker]

I did a google search for "post hole toad."  The only, singular site was a
porno site, analbuy.com.

So what was the context of this phrase?

Jim

Roger Shuy writes:

> on 4/24/05 9:54 AM, sagehen at sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: Another one
>>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --> -
>>
>> Roger Shuy writes:
>>> ........."That's deeper than a post-hole toad." .... I've never heard this
>>> one before >or since and even the native Texan lawyers I worked with
>>> couldn't remember >ever having heard it.
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~
>> I wonder if this was simply meant to suggest a degree of trouble.  A toad
>> that had fallen into a deep hole as narrow as a post-hole digger produces
>> might well be unable to get out.
>> A. Murie
>>
> I think you're right but I'm actually less interested in the meaning than in
> the extent of the use of this expression. These taped speakers used other
> colorful language throughout (most of which I was at least familiar), but
> I'd never heard this one before and was just asking the list if they had.
> I'm getting the impression that "deeper than a post-hole toad" was just a
> one-time colorful way of saying something otherwise more prosaic like
> "really in this thing deep."
>
> roger
>



James C. Stalker
Department of English
Michigan State University