A new use of "duh?"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Tue Mar 7 02:43:55 UTC 2006


At 7:10 PM -0500 3/5/06, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
>The passage of time probably explains everything. No shit (Sherlock) / no
>shit (Shinola) dates to the late '40's - early '50's in speech. That it
>should have precisely the same meaning a half-century later is not to be
>expected.

Interesting.  I'm familiar with the former of these (which would of
course be transparent in any case, even if I can't quite picture Dr.
Watson muttering the line) but not the latter, but on the other hand
that's the very same old Shinola (brown shoe polish) that shoes...er,
shows up elsewhere in the classic "X can't tell shit from Shinola",
one of my favorite entries in the ass v. hole-in-the-ground
indiscriminabilia sweepstakes.

Larry

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