"take a Dixie"

[Jonathan Lighter]

The late '70s date suggests that "take a Dixie " means "take a fall" (when
it does mean that) because of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down."

Down, get it?  And the people were singin', "Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah
nyah!"  Well, maybe not "nyah."  But I do think the song is a likely
suspect.

If anybody needs to leave the room to "take a Dixie," it may have
been influenced by the Dixie Cups used for urine specimens.  And leaving the
room is just a subset of leaving in general or "taking a powder" as the
prehistoric set would have it.

JL

On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 9:32 PM, Philip E. Cleary <philipcleary at rcn.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Philip E. Cleary" <philipcleary at RCN.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "take a Dixie"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 8/15/2010 6:15 PM, Garson O'Toole wrote:
> > Google Answers has a question in 2003 that suggests two meanings:
> > "took a dixie" meaning a "fall" or "disappearance", as in "taking a
> powder"
>
> I remember hearing the expression in the mid or late 1970s. A kid
> tripped on a toy and fell, and his father said, "You took a dixie."
>
> Phil Cleary
>
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