"black as Caesar's tail"

[Wilson Gray]

But a slave wouldn't have a tail, would he? Would he?!

-Wilson

On 4/10/07, Mark A. Mandel <mamandel at ldc.upenn.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mark A. Mandel" <mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "black as Caesar's tail"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Lee Murrah <mclee at MURRAH.COM> wrote:
>      >>>>>
>
> 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?
>
>   <<<<<
>
> I'm inclined to look to the antebellum use of classical names for slaves.
> I'm copying this question to the mailing list of the American Name Society
> for further info.
>
> -- Mark A. Mandel
> [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.]
>
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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

"Experience" is the ability to recognize a mistake when you make it, again.

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