any takers?

[Wilson Gray]

Maybe he's from  the South. In my East-Texas youth, the kind of knife
that Tarzan wore at his waist, for example, was referred to as a
"dirk."

-Wilson

On Feb 18, 2008 3:14 PM, James Harbeck <jharbeck at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
> Subject:      Re: any takers?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Well, a dirk is a dagger, so I guess the idea is that he didn't show
> some level of preparedness to fight (or even, perhaps, metaphorically
> _use_ the dirk; "flash" is a little unclear in this context)...
>
> Google tells me that this is not a current phrase; it appears to be
> this writer's innovation. The writer, Michael Powell, shows other
> evidence in the article of liking a bit of life in his metaphors: "He
> flapped like a hawk on foreign politics and sang like a moderate bird
> on domestic affairs." "He finished fifth and soon folded his tent."
> "Mr. McCain had fallen into a political manhole the previous summer
> and was still crawling out from single digits in the polls."
> "Couldn't the red-meat stuff get a bit uncomfortable at Republican
> rallies?"
>
> James Harbeck.
>
>
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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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