"I said to myself, 'Self...'" in "Moose Turd Pie"

[Wilson Gray]

"That's strange. I would have sworn ...," as the cliche goes. Flip and
I shared a mutual friend, back in the day, though his share was
somewhat more intimate than mine. ;-) Maybe it was something that she
told me. Well, IAC, at this point, I'm going to withdraw my claim,
saying only that, to the extent that I associate this bit with Flip,
to that same extent, I don't associate it with Cosby.

As fate would have it, I own the recordings, but only in the form of
LP's, and I haven't had a way to play them for about twenty years.

-Wilson

On 1/27/06, Sam Clements <SClements at neo.rr.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Sam Clements <SClements at NEO.RR.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "I said to myself, 'Self...'" in "Moose Turd Pie"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I, too, seem to remember Wilson using the phrase, but it would have to have
> been from his tv show, 1970-74.
>
> Sam Clements
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Benjamin Zimmer" <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Friday, January 27, 2006 1:35 PM
> Subject: Re: "I said to myself, 'Self...'" in "Moose Turd Pie"
>
>
> > On 1/26/06, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> The late, great Clerow Wilson Honey, AKA "Flip Wilson," was using this
> >> as a cathch phrase in the '60's.
> >>
> >> Cf.
> >>
> >> 1964. Pot Luck; Scepter Records SRM/SPS-520
> >>
> >> or the perhaps more-easily found
> >>
> >> 1968. Cowboys and Colored People; Atlantic Records AT 8149
> >>
> >> 1968. You Devil, You!; Atlantic Records AT 8179
> >
> > Wilson, I just listened to two or three hours' worth of Flip Wilson
> > routines from his '60s recordings (everything I could find via
> > file-sharing networks). Very entertaining, but not one example of
> > "Self"-address. Is there a particular routine in which you remember
> > him using the expression?
> >
> > A few people suggested Bill Cosby used it in his standup act in the
> > '60s, but I came up empty when I checked his recordings too.
> >
> >
> > --Ben Zimmer
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
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