"kink in your armor"
Wilson Gray
hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Tue Oct 10 17:27:31 UTC 2006
I certainly *hope* that the claim was made facetiously! Otherwise,
what I see here in "kink" is a slur against the kind of bad hair
(stereo)typical of African-Americans! ;-)
-Wilson
On 10/10/06, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject: "kink in your armor"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Maybe this has been mentioned before.
>
> An attorney on Court TV has described a defendant as having a "kink in his armor."
>
> A Google search revels over 100 raw hits (really not that many) for "kink in his/ your
> armo(u)r."
>
> Now it may be purely coincidental, but I can recall the claim (made in the 1970's and perhaps facetiously - at first) that a "chink in one's armor" was a racially offensive phrase, along with "The jig is up."
>
> Some exx. of "kink in one's armor" may reflect this belief, others simply a (childhood ?) mishearing of "chink."
>
> JL
>
>
>
>
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