Contemporary slang bites the big one

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 5/14/06, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/14/06, Mark A. Mandel <mamandel at ldc.upenn.edu> wrote:
> > Benjamin Zimmer:
> > >>  *That really bit.
> >
> > Jesse:
> > > This is non-asterisked in my idiolect.
> >
> > Ditto for me.
>
> "You ain't said shit!"
>
> "You sayin' a tas'e (i.e., taste)!"
>
> Both of which mean, for no reason that I've ever been able to fathom,
>
> "I am in complete agreement with what you have to say." In this case, I
> agree with Jon and Mark.

OK, if you can have "bite" = 'be objectionable' in the past tense,
then why not "bite the big one"? At the top of the thread you said you
had only encountered it in the present tense.


--Ben Zimmer

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