Back(s) of our necks

[Jonathan Lighter]

I seem to recollect, from some ancient fiction, a mock-oath, "May I never see the back of my neck if...."

  Owing to an inefficient design which anti-Darwinians might look into, we never do see the backs of our own necks. Evidently this inconvenience annoyed someone so much that hu, perhaps inadvertently, put hus observation into circulation.

  Since the back of the neck is inaccessible to one's sight, almost any advantage, like scoring a point in euchre, may seem like a great blessing.

  Not even the owl, who can rotate hus head virtually 180 degrees, can truly see the back of hus own neck.  A pun lies therein, but I cannot quite winkle it out. Charlie ? Larry ?

  JL

Bill Le May <blemay0 at MCHSI.COM> wrote:
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Poster: Bill Le May
Subject: Back(s) of our necks
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My mother uses a curious phrase: "... if we *never* see the back(s) of our
necks." It's always spoken in the context of having finally accomplished a
small success after long effort.

For example, we play euchre and she is down 9-0. Once her side wins a hand,
she says "Well at least we scored a point, if we *never* see the back of our
necks."

I can't make any sense of it, nor find any instance online. When I ask her
about it, she shrugs and replies, "It's just something you say." There are
a lot of sayings associated with the card game of euchre, but I've never
heard anyone else use this phrase.

Maybe it's supposed to be "if we never see the back of THEIR necks", which
could analogize to running far behind everyone else in a footrace. I don't
know...

She was born in 1919 and grew up in Dubuque, Iowa. Her mother grew up in
Elizabeth, Illinois, and her father in Nebraska.

I'm curious whether anyone else has heard this.

Bill Le May

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