spade cat (was Re: "like" and "as if")

[Wilson Gray]

On Jun 25, 2005, at 1:32 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: spade cat (was Re: "like" and "as if")
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
>> On Jun 24, 2005, at 12:08 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>> Subject:      spade cat (was Re: "like" and "as if")
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> --
>>> --------
>>>
>>> At 12:38 AM -0400 6/24/05, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>>> On Jun 23, 2005, at 9:31 PM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>>>>> Mid-sentential examples from _Mojo Navigator_:
>>>>>
>>>>> -----
>>>>> At ten o'clock they started to serve drinks and the older crowd
>>>>> would
>>>>> come
>>>>> in, and like they=92re white-collar drunks and all...a bad scene.
>>>>> ("Big Brother & the Holding Company", Sep. 1966)
>>>>> -----
>>>>> The only other blues clubs are in the South Side, and like you just
>>>>> don't
>>>>> go down there unless you have a spade
>>>>
>>>> FWIW, Richie Havens is the only spade that I've ever heard use the
>>>> word
>>>> "spade" to mean "spade": "I bet you didn't know that there were
>>>> spade
>>>> cowboys, did you?" A rhetorical question asked on a TV show as he
>>>> was
>>>> about to sing some Western ditty.
>>>>
>>>> Then there was the time that I asked a friend at UC Davis please not
>>>> to
>>>> refer to spades as "spades," especially when she was talking to a
>>>> spade, at least. She replied that, at her no-doubt lily-white high
>>>> school in her no-doubt lily-white town somewhere in the
>>>> Northern-California wine country, it was customary to refer to
>>>> spades
>>>> as "spades." After pondering this for over 35 years, I still haven't
>>>> been able to winkle out the logical connection between my request
>>>> and
>>>> her reply to it. Clearly, talking to her was like talking to a wall,
>>>> to
>>>> coin a phrase. She just didn't get it.
>>>>
>>>> -Wilson Gray
>>>
>>> Which brings me to one of my favorite orthographic eggcorns,
>>> preserved from October 1995 when we were in the kitty-cat market.
>>> This classified ad appeared in our local throw-away weekly:
>>>
>>>       SR. CITIZEN KITTY needs loving home, spade, all shots, healthy.
>>>       I've been a good kitty & promise to be a purr-fect pet.  Please
>>>       call ____.  Love Kitty.
>>>
>>> There are 130 google hits for "spade cat", and while some have the
>>> hipster meaning in mind--
>>>
>>> A spade cat from Port Washington joined the Quarry and tried to tell
>>> us what was on his mind. He was a fairly good singer...
>>>
>>> If Barton had been a spade cat they would have thrown his ass into
>>> jail before you could say Bull Conners.
>>>
>>> --many clearly involve the eggcornish reading:
>>>
>>> Like the difference between the behavior of a spade cat and an
>>> unspade
>>> cat.
>>>
>>> I still cant quite beleive that a portrayal of a recently spade cat
>>> could be such great comedy material
>>>
>>> My female spade cat has a problem peeing on my bath rugs.
>>>
>>> (Actually, after coping recently with a (male) cat who had *no*
>>> problem peeing on my bath rugs, I wouldn't complain about a cat
>>> having a problem doing so.)
>>>
>>> Larry
>>>
>>
>> We have two kitties. Given that they're black females, I guess you
>> could say that they're both spayed and spade! <har! har!>
>>
>> -Wilson
>
> We ended up choosing two female kittens from a different litter
> advertised in the same paper, a tabby and an an all-black who will
> turn 10 this summer, and my reaction was that we could save some
> money at the vets' because they would only need to operate on one of
> the two kitties--the other one was spade when we got her.
>

Nice return, Larry! ;-)