"flying fuck"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Or they could check HDAS.

  JL

"Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
Subject: Re: "flying fuck"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At 4/18/2008 03:28 AM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 01:01:31AM -0400, Sam Clements wrote:
> > Newspaperarchive has from 1952 a cite for "take a flying jump at a rolling
> > doughnut" and from 1972 "take a flying leap at a rolling doughnut." So the
> > expression no doubt goes back a ways, not that we'll find "flying fuck" in
> > print very easily.
>
>I know the whole thing of looking things up in the OED is
>somewhat out of favor, but I do want to point out that in our
>latest update, we published a 1938 example from John O'Hara of
>"take a flying fuck at a galloping rooster".

They don't even have to look at the online OED, Jesse. I reported
the OED's 1938 instance, as well as its next, 1951, in an earlier
message on this list. And (with respect to davemarc
's finding, both of these also precede
"Slaughterhouse Five", which is I think 1969.

Joel

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



---------------------------------
Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.

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