come on like gangbusters/Buster's gang

[Wilson Gray]

Have many people here have actually heard "Gangbusters"? FWIW, I have
and "Gangbusters" didn't "come." Rather, "Gangbusters" came *on*. But
consider this verse from the song, "Searchin'', by The Coasters:

Wherever she's a-hidin'
She's gonna hear me comin'
I'll walk right down that street
Like Bulldog Drummond

Bulldog Drummond was not known for walking down the street. So, at the
end of the day, who can say that the author below wasn't influenced by
"come on like Gangbusters"?

-Wilson Gray

On Jun 3, 2005, at 9:26 AM, neil wrote:

>
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       neil <neil at TYPOG.CO.UK>
> Subject:      come on like gangbusters/Buster's gang
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> This variant of the expression is new to me. The story is supposedly
> set in
> the 1940s:
>
> 'She had given me a hand-job, too, and I had come like Buster's gang,
> going
> off like a skyrocket, not just once, but twice.'
>
> --Day Dreamer, 'A Girl Named Charlie, part 2: A High School Romance'
> http://www.asstr.org/files/Collections/ASSTR_Collection/Day_Dreamer/
> Day_Drea
> mer.A_Girl_Names_Charlie_Part_2.txt
>
> --Neil Crawford
>