Of minks and stoats

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:05 AM -0700 5/11/09, James Smith wrote:
>Then there's the phrase, I believe from Guys and Dolls, "[I] got the
>fur coat the same way the mink got it!". This doesn't make sense
>literally because the mink is born with the fur coat, but it implies
>the promiscuity of the mink.

Right, the version James Harbeck posted ("How do women get minks?
The same way minks do.") is much cleverer, hinging as it does on the
ambiguity of "get" and the underspecified nature of the reference of
"mink".  I can't imagine, though, that that quip, hoary (as it were)
as it is, was a factor in the "fuck(s) like a mink" locution, or vice
versa.

LH

>
>James D. SMITH               |If history teaches anything
>South SLC, UT                |it is that we will be sued
>jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com   |whether we act quickly and decisively
>                              |or slowly and cautiously.
>
>
>>  >> Sender:       American Dialect Society
>>  <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  >> Poster:       "Cohen, Gerald Leonard"
>>  <gcohen at MST.EDU>
>>  >> Subject:      Of minks and stoats
>>  >>
>>  >>  With regard to minks and their hypersexuality, I
>>  once came across
>>  >> an insult uttered in the House of Commons:
>>  >> "The right honorable gentleman has the morals
>>  of a stoat."  (a stoat
>>  >> = ermine = type of weasel; and minks are closely
>>  related to
>>  >> weasels).  I sometimes wondered how the morals of
>>  a stoat would be
>>  >> much different from the morals of any other wild
>>  animal, but thanks
>>  >> to ads-l (All praise!), I now know.
>...
>>  >> Gerald Cohen
>
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