Heard on The Judges: extended version of old idiom

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Fri Sep 19 19:30:44 UTC 2008


Mid-twenty-ish black-male speaker explaining why he wasn't serious:

"I wanted to threaten her so that she would think that I was going to
hit her, but I ain't got _a beat-a-chick bone_ in my body."


Back in 'Fifties Saint Louis, we used to say, e.g.:

"Man, you ain't got _a cool bone_ in your body."

-Wilson
--
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.
-----
-Mark Twain

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



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