in a position; holy crapsticks

[Jonathan Lighter]

Scrupulosity compels me to observe that that the character in _Showdown at Area 51_ conceivably cried, "Holy crab-sticks!"

  Am not sure which is weirder.  Of the pair, "...crab-sticks!" gets more Googlits.

  JL

Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Charles Doyle
Subject: Re: in a poistion; holy crapsticks
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My favorite oldies of the "bad"-deletion sort are "temperature" (as in "He running a temperature") and "temper" (as in "She's really got a temper")--both of which oxymoronically imply the very opposite of TEMPERATENESS.

--Charlie
_____________________________________________________________

---- Original message ----
>Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 08:54:42 -0800
>From: Jonathan Lighter
>
>At what point in our history, I wonder, did the cultural expectation that any circumstance is most likely to be bad become entrenched in our very grammar?
>
> Whorf would have loved it.
>
> JL
>
>Dennis Preston
wrote:
>
>This is the "bad" deletion rule; applies to attitude, situation, position, mood, feeling, etc...
>
>dInIs
>

>>
>>Just watched Sci-Fi Channel's TV movie, _Showdown at Area 51_ (2007). At one point, a character says, "Don't put me in a position!"
>>
>> I.e., a difficult or unpleasant relational position with respect to somebody else. (The speaker was reluctant to have to place the hero under arrest.) Cf. the earlier and precisely parallel narrowing of "situation" into "bad situation."
>>
>> Another character had occasion to exclaim later, "Holy crapsticks!" which is a new one on me.
>>
>> JL

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