"black as Caesar's tail"

[Wilson Gray]

I'm from Marshall, in the East-Texas region, myself, but I'm not
familiar with this phrase. It doesn't strike me as necessarily racist,
even though I'm black and I don't consider myself to be particularly
unaware of even hidden racism.

In this situation, my own mother, a native of Longview, would use
"motley." As a consequence, it took me a while to understand the
standard meaning in a phrase like "dressed in motley."

What're your thoughts on this, Charlie?

-Wilson

On 4/6/07, Lee Murrah <mclee at murrah.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Lee Murrah <mclee at MURRAH.COM>
> Subject:      "black as Caesar's tail"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> When I was growing up in East Texas in the 1950s, when something was
> very dirty, my mother would say it was as "black as Caesar's tail."
> I have searched for an explanation of the term but have never found a
> single reference to it.  In that time and place one might suspect
> that it had some racial overtones, but I never heard it used in that
> sense.  Does anyone have an information on its origins?
>
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All say, "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'l Clemens

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