on the excretory practices of American eagles

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>>When the eagle shits was payday in the army in ww2...jfoster
>
>Ah, but that doesn't necessarily allude to the practice of
>(metaphorically) squeezing the dollar (or quarter) until the eagle
>shits/poops/grins, does it?  Or does it?

I think they're separate expressions. Just my naive impression. However
"eagle screams" (used in MASH for "payday", judging by Google results) is
apparently conventional in both applications.

I used to hear "[when] the eagle flies" = "[when] one gets paid" referring
to payday. I suspect this was the original, essentially "[when] the eagle
becomes apparent". "The eagle" refers to $10 just as "the dollar" refers to
$1, I think, so "the eagle" = "money". Other versions have "eagle walks",
"eagle screams", etc., etc. "Eagle shits", I suppose, is basically one of
these but favored by reanalysis in which the eagle represents not 'money'
but rather 'the US government', in reference to a specifically governmental
payday.

The other expression in my limited experience is basically "squeeze the
money/eagle until it [does something]"; of course the money, being
inanimate, will not tend to do anything, so any arbitrary response (such as
speaking or excreting) from the eagle will indicate a good squeeze. I've
heard "until the eagle screams" a few times myself; I don't recall ever
hearing an excretory version but one would expect that it must occur. I
suppose that "eagle" here maybe originally referred to the old $10 gold
coin rather than to the eagle on a quarter or dollar or some other modern
currency, but maybe I'm wrong again.

-- Doug Wilson


--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.410 / Virus Database: 268.17.11/652 - Release Date: 1/25/2007

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org