"It's alive!"

[George Thompson]

If I recall, HDAS has this from the mouths of boxers, who evidently mean
"if he gets close enough to hit me, he'll be close enough for me to hit
him" -- in order to get my ass, he'll have to risk his own ass.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
Date: Tuesday, February 7, 2006 9:59 am
Subject: "It's alive!"

> On one  of today's local versions of the Jerry Springer Show, a member
> of the audience used the exprssion,
>
> "You got to bring ass to get ass!"
>
> This is the first time that I've heard this "in the wild" [love that
> phrase! congrats to whoever thought it up!] since I was in the Army in
> 1960.
>
> If the meaning is not obvious, it means to say that you can't get
> something for nothing. The National Lampoon once put it this way:
> "Ass, grass, or gas. Nobody rides for free!"
>
> -Wilson Gray
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org