Jumper cables

[Jonathan Lighter]

At NYU in 1970 I heard "Busier than a cat covering shit on a cement highway."  My interlocutor had learned it from his father.

"He was quiet as a wooden-legged man on a tin roof and busy as a one-armed paperhanger with the hives" appears on p. 64 of Carl Sandburg's _The People, Yes_ (1936).

"Busier than a one-legged man at an ass-kickin' (contest)" shows up in several WWII novels published in the '50s.

JL

Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Benjamin Zimmer
Subject: Re: Jumper cables
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jim Landau:
>I heard an interesting ethnic slur(?) today: "I was as busy as jumper
>cables at a Puerto Rican wedding".

Sam Clements:
>I first heard a variant in about 1979 as "jumper cables at a Mexican
>Wedding." Heard in California. From a Texan.

The "Canonical List Of Language Humor" maintained by the rec.humor
newsgroup in the mid-'90s included these similes:

-----
Busier than a cat covering shit on a hot tin roof.
Busier than a centipede at a toe countin' contest.
Busier than a one-armed taxi driver with crabs.
Busier than a one-eyed cat watching nine mouseholes.
Busier than a set of jumper cables at a Mexican wedding.
Busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.
Busy as a one-armed wallpaper hanger with the crabs.
Busy as a one-legged cat trying to bury shit on a frozen pond.
-----

I'm sure Rey "Maledicta" Aman has many more in his files.


--Ben Zimmer


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com