The Dead Wagon

[Baker, John]

        A number of the web references to "dead wagon" are indeed to
that skit.

        I believe that the skit was preceded by the grisly Gahan Wilson
cartoon, in which the driver of such a cart, piled high with corpses
from the plague, is saying to his companion, "You realize, of course,
that once the Black Death is over, we'll be out of a job."

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Sam Clements
Sent: Sunday, July 10, 2005 6:22 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: The Dead Wagon

How can one not think of the Monty Python skit...."Bring out your dead."

Sam Clements

From: "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
Sent: Sunday, July 10, 2005 6:19 PM
Subject: The Dead Wagon


>        I was just thinking about the dead wagon of my youth, and I
> noticed that there are few attestations of this usage.  A dead wagon,
> as we used the term in south-central Kentucky, was a truck (I suppose
> once it must have been a wagon), owned by a dog food company, that
> would remove freshly dead farm animals in exchange for their meat and
hides.
> I believe that dead wagons may still be in use.