strong like ball

[Jonathan Lighter]

I don't get it.

JL

Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIOU.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Beverly Flanigan
Subject: Re: strong like ball
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This sent me into such gales of laughter that I'm forwarding it to all my
colleagues (one stopped in my doorway and wondered why I was howling).

At 02:39 PM 3/3/2005, you wrote:
>We had chickens, and this twist of the wrist was a coming of age
>phenomenon for me. The first time I was sent out to do the deed
>(which I had observed many times), a breaking rather than a parting
>of the neck resulted, so that the poor critter could no longer hold
>its head up, but it did indeed run around the yard, like a chicken
>with its head a-danglin rather than like one with its head cut off. I
>caught it and took my little hatchet to it.
>
>I was later successful with this flick of the wrist and sent many
>birds to the big coop in the sky.
>
>dInIs
>
>
>>At 11:09 PM 3/2/2005, you wrote:
>>>My grandmother used both "greedy-gut" and "glutton" with wild abandon.
>>>However, I don't recall that she ever said just plain "gut(s)." She
>>>used "insides" for chickens or named the individual parts thereof, when
>>>asked. Since we had our own chickens, I saw my grandfather kill a
>>>chicken by literally wringing its neck. He picked up the chicken by its
>>>head, made a particular movement with his wrist, and the chicken's head
>>>remained in his hand and its body fell to the ground, where it ran
>>>around like a chicken with its head cut or, rather, torn off.
>>>
>>>So, I've seen a literal slap on the wrist, a neck literally wrung, and
>>>a chicken literally running around with its head torn off.
>>
>>I have too--in fact, my mother did the chicken-neck wringing so that we
>>could have "chicken every Sunday."


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