" tree-top tall" (was: Re: "sugar daddy")

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

I remember a song from the 1950s or '60's, with the lyrics: "Hey, Mama, tree-top tall, won't you kindly turn your temper down." I've always assumed that "tree-top tall" here somehow refers to anger.  Evidently "tree-top tall" has had one more than one meaning in American English.
 
Gerald Cohen

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From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Wilson Gray
Sent: Tue 6/20/2006 8:59 PM
Subject: Re: "sugar daddy"



FWIW,  according to my mother, when she was in high school,
ca.1923-1927, the ideal boy friend was defined in chickspeak as "a
_sweet papa_, tree-top tall."

-Wilson

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