"Uglier than a hat full of ass"

[Wilson Gray]

"Uglier than a hat full / hatful of ass" is new to me. It's the other
comparisons that I'm familiar with. "Sheep shit" I first heard in the
'50's and "Sammy Davis, Jr." I first heard in 1961, on my first trip
to Amsterdam, an unforgettable event. And remember, y'all, segregation
really worked! There were - and, to a certain extent, still are - two
different worlds, especially WRT to slang.

-Wilson

On 9/10/06, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "Uglier than a hat full of ass"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >Well, not really. It's a whole lot of colored folks who use these.
> >Well, probably not nearly as many as there used to be. My childhood
> >friends have been dying off since 1986. The saying featuring Sammy
> >Davis, Jr. is probably on  the way out as people who know what he
> >looked like die off.
> >
> >-Wilson
> >
> >On 9/8/06, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote: ....
>
> >Wilson, a Google search indicates with a rather high level of probability that
> >>
> >>   YOU ARE THE ONLY EARTHMAN TO USE THESE PHRASES
>
> I've heard this "hatful of ass" (my spelling) from somebody other than
> Wilson Gray. Can't remember who it was, though.
>
> I've heard the less elaborate "looks like ass", "smells like ass", etc.,
> more often. I suppose "ass" is equivalent to "shit" in these contexts.
>
> I've never heard the Sammy Davis one AFAIK.
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>
>
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--
-Wilson
----
Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

--Sam Clemens

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