"Biting the big one"

[Benjamin Barrett]

Does "get shafted" then derive from homosexual rape? I always imagined
someone getting pushed down a mine shaft...BB

On Oct 6, 2008, at 11:08 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> That takes gas "That sucks/blows"
>
> [Someone] is taking gas "[Someone] is getting the shaft/shafted"
>
> [Someone] took gas "[Someone] got the shaft/shafted"
>
> Neat guy! "You asshole!"
>
> but
>
> (That's) neat! "(That's) cool!"
>
> In my experience, these don't exist in the black speech, not even in
> that of black ex-GI's, of my era. That's no doubt why I'm not familiar
> with all the combinations, permutations, and possibilities. If I
> hadn't gone to a high school and also served in a military unit that
> were 99.44% white, I would never have heard any of these forms, except
> for "bite the big one" in the sense of "die."
>
> It's interesting that "bite the big one," which clearly referenced
> homosexual rape by the Army's big green wienie, in the military, now
> has no kind of sexual overtone whatsoever.

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