stick a fork in - - I'm done

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 4/18/07, Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 18 Apr 2007, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> > Can't find the note at the moment, but the expression appears in a 1945
> > photo of aircraft workers who've covered with names and witticisms the
> > fuselage of the final B-24 (?) airplane to be completed.
>
> The breathtakingly informative Yale Book of Quotations has the following:
>
> You can stick a fork in him folks -- he's done.
>         Jay Hanna "Dizzy" Dean, Quoted in _Berkshire Evening Eagle_
> (Pittsfield, Mass.), 25 Ju;y 1944

As noted here by Barry Popik back in Dec. 2003:
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0312b&L=ads-l&P=14675

And reproduced on his website:
http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/entry/stick_a_fork_in_him_hes_done/


--Ben Zimmer

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