"Don't shit where you eat"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Could this phrase in English be a loan-translation?  My impression is that writers who use it tend disproportionately to be second- or third-generation East European Jews.

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: "Don't shit where you eat"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ii agree with what you say WRT to Muslim custom. I read about it in a
book, about fifty years ago. ;-) But wouldn't that also be true of
Americans? Wouldn't you switch hands or put down what you were
holding, in order to be able to shake hands with another American with
your right hand? Or maybe I'm being hypersensitive.

White guy offers right hand to black guy:

"Happy New Year!"

Black guy extends right hand.

White guy withdraws right hand and offers left hand:

"Oops! I'm sorry! I use my *left* hand to shake with niggers."

-Wilson

On 7/6/07, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Beverly Flanigan
> Subject: Re: "Don't shit where you eat"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 04:46 PM 7/6/2007, you wrote:
> >---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >-----------------------
> >Sender: American Dialect Society
> >Poster: Barbara Need
> >Subject: Re: "Don't shit where you eat"
> >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >At 23:11 -0400 03/7/07, sagehen wrote:
> > > >Sorry for the crude title.
> > >>
> > >>Has anyone searched to find out what the earliest version of this must
> > >>have been? I would doubt that it was that phrasing.
> > >>
> > >>Anyone suggest what the original sentiment might have been?
> > >>
> > >>Sam Clements
> > > ~~~~~~~~~~
> > >I remember reading about the Essenes or some similar group -- associated
> > >with the Dead Sea Scrolls, perhaps? -- that had strictures concerning the
> > >roles of the two hands: the one that went into the communal pot at mealtime
> > >would never be the one that wiped one's bottom. Whether the left was the
> > >"clean" and the right the "unclean" I don't remember, but I believe the
> > >roles were immutable.
> > >AM
> >
> >I remember a month-long Sunday school sequence on the Arab world
> >(mid-70s, Unitarian Church) in which we were instructed to eat with
> >the right hand (no utensils!) because the left hand was traditionally
> >used to wipe oneself.
> >
> >Barbara
> >
> >Barbara Need
> >UChicago
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------------
> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> Still true for Muslims. If I'm holding something in my right hand and
> unthinkingly shake hands with a Muslim student with my left hand, I
> immediately know I've committed a faux pas from the look on the face of my
> student.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

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



---------------------------------
 Get your own web address.
 Have a HUGE year through Yahoo! Small Business.

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