fan-hitting (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 11:50 AM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC
<Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
> >
> > Fit hit the shan:
> >
> >
> > Long Beach CA _Press Telegram_  9/20/1974 p. c-23 col 4
> > [display ad for Carson Toyota] "EVEN THE SHAN OF ARABIA HAD A
> > FIT OVER HIS NEW TOYOTA (THE FIT HIT THE SHAN)"
>
> Possibly earlier. It's hard to tell from Google Books, but it looks like
> _The Journal of American Folklore_, Jan-Mar 1963, V 76 N 299 p 62 has "
> . . .the Khan asked each man, "Where were you when the fit hit the
> Shan?" "

Confirmed on JSTOR.

----
Jan Harold Brunvand, "A Classification for Shaggy Dog Stories". _Journal of
American Folklore_, Vol. 76, No. 299 (Jan. - Mar., 1963), p. 62

C470. The Epileptic Shan. Ghengis Khan's lieutenants were called "Shans"; one of
them had epileptic seizures. In a battle, his men defected when he had one such
seizure and when the matter was investigated, the Khan asked each man, "Where
were you when the fit hit the Shan?"
--Oral tradition, summer 1958.
----


--Ben Zimmer

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