The earth v. Earth (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Jim Parish]

Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
> I've heard folks in the rural South referring to having "the cancer"
> instead of what seems to me to be standard usage "cancer".

For whatever it may be worth, the phrase is put in the mouth of Col.
McKeon, one of the Delaware delegates in "1776", after Cesar
Rodney's collapse. (I don't have it at hand at the moment, but McKeon
says something like "Ay. It's the cancer.")

Jim Parish

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