Gold Tooth Guy

[Wilson Gray]

Here, it might depend upon race. There has never been a time when gold
teeth have been out of style among blacks. (I was surprised to read in
some history of fashion or other that, in the Nineteenth and early
Twentieth centuries, bejeweled, gold crowned teeth were also quite
popular among le haut-mond blanc.) When I was a child, there was a
family friend who had gold crowns on all thirty-two. Having a gold
tooth or gold teeth wouldn't necessarily pick anybody out of a crowd
of black people, whence the addition of gemstones, etc., to one's
grill, in order to stand out. I have three gold teeth, myself, and I'm
expecting to get three more. Admittedly, I'm not doing it merely as a
fashion statement, since the gold crowns cover and will cover only
damaged molars and premolars. But, when the offa-donnis told me that I
could get either gold or the other stuff for the same astonishing
co-pay of 500 bucks, it took me only the time necessary to fire up my
speech organs to go for the gold.

-Wilson

On 10/1/07, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Gold Tooth Guy
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sep 30, 2007, at 7:14 PM, Mark Mandel wrote:
>
> > This googit looks like a genuine eggcorn, or at least a mondegreen (
> > http://www.alwayslyrics.com/result.php/97128).This site has song
> > lyrics as
> > transcribed by whoever puts them up, and this transcriber's
> > spelling and
> > punctuation are already pretty bad.
> >
> >   my gold tooth guy i could depend on you,only people out to get me
> > were
> > friends like you,
>
> it took me a while to figure out that the model was "go-to guy".
> does Haystak actually say "gold tooth guy", or was this a mishearing?
>
> > This other one is unclear (
> > http://datinginbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html):
> >
> >   Then, yesterday afternoon, back in NY, I had a very interesting
> > conversation with my co-worker (gold tooth guy)
>
> also, at http://girlfawkes1.blogspot.com/ for 9/28/07:
>
> I came across a new saying a couple of days ago. I was walking behind
> two guys on Ludlow Ave, and I was shamelessly eavesdropping on their
> conversation. One guy was talking about how he used to be the best
> football player on his high school team. He was saying how he would
> do anything for the team and the team really counted on him to do
> whatever they needed. Then he said something that truly perplexed me.
> He said, "Man, I was the Gold Tooth Guy." What? What on earth could
> this possibly mean? He clearly said Gold Tooth Guy. His friend just
> nodded in recognition,so he must have known what it meant. Then I
> realized that this man meant that he was the Go To Guy on the team.
> [followed by query about the correct linguistic term, and a
> discussion of what "go-to guy" means]
>
> ....
>
> otherwise, the hits seem to be about guys who are picked out by their
> having a gold tooth/gold teeth.
>
> arnold
>
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>


--
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

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