Heard on Jerry Springer: "the bird is the word"

[Bill Palmer]

In some Spanish-speaking countries, "pajaro" (bird) is used in that way.

Bill Palmer

----- Original Message -----
From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 12:13 PM
Subject: Heard on Jerry Springer: "the bird is the word"


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Heard on Jerry Springer: "the bird is the word"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Two mid-twenty-ish black men, cousins from somewhere behind the Cotton
> Curtain, judging by their speech patterns, are having an argument, one
> having confessed to having had sex with the other's girlfriend. One
> asks, clearly referring to the other's genitalia - he points to them -
> "Why did you take out your _bird_, man? What made you pull out your
> _bird_?"
>
>
> I first heard the gesture, "the finger," referred to as "the bird" -
> she had to explain to me what she meant -  ca.1971 at UC Davis by a
> female classmate from the wilds of the Deep Northern California
> boondocks. I've since heard it randomly used, here and there.
>
> However, this is the first time that I've ever heard the penis
> referred to as "your _bird_."
>
> -Wilson
> â?"â?"â?"
> 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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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