"tooth and neck"

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:51 AM -0400 9/17/08, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>At 9/17/2008 10:45 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>At 7:37 AM -0700 9/17/08, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>>>Jeff Shaumeyer, on his blog (http://bearcastle.com/blog/?p=1245)
>>>reporting on "tooth and neck" in an episode of This American Life on
>>>NPR:
>>>it happened about 8 minutes and 41 seconds into the piece. One Mike
>>>Garner, of Silver State Mortgage in Nevada, was talking about how Wall
>>>Street kept lowering its standards for mortgage qualification in order
>>>to increase the number of mortgages written to feed the investment
>>>monster. They were so desperate that they finally worked their way
>>>down to the "NINA", or "No Income-No Assets', apparently AKA "the
>>>liar's loan". Garner, speaking of his boss, who thought this was
>>>financial craziness, said
>>>
>>>"He hated those loans  He fought the owners and sales force tooth and
>>>neck about these guidelines."
>>>
>>>.....
>>>
>>>jeff googled up a few more (legitimate) examples.
>>>
>>>blend of "tooth and nail" and "neck and neck", maybe.
>>Seems like a plausible candidate for an online
>>blend.  On the other hand, maybe if this catches
>>on it will be reanalyzed as "fought [them] tooth
>>in neck", pitbull-style...
>
>Or as an allusion to the bankers and mortgage brokers as vampires?
>
>Joel
>
Well, I think we'll need to help the allusion along.  The only
marginally relevant "tooth in neck" cite on google is a review on
squidmusic:

"Cynthia Contreras voice is haunting and ethereal as it appears from
time to time throughout the record and her solo contribution Vampires
is a good-humored tooth in neck tale of vampire lovers in the night."

On the other hand, there are a few hits for "fought...tooth and neck"
itself, although mostly for the NPR occurrence above.  But there's
also:

You guys out there fighting tooth and neck in debate

"the [Urbana, IL] City Council was fighting tooth and neck against
Wal-Mart moving to town."

Hey jchen, we (the doa community) fought tooth and neck to get DOA 4
back at evo.

LH

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