"How about opening up a can of getting-things-done?"

[Dan Goncharoff]

I have never seen a positive version of "opening up a can of X" before.
Worms, beans, trouble, whoop-ass, kick-butt, but never something positive.

DanG

On 6/26/2010 9:06 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray<hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      "How about opening up a can of getting-things-done?"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Spoken by an sE-speaking voiceoverer for some nutha, with that
> Hey-kids!-What-time-is-it?! pattern of intonation.
>
> A weird malformation of the dekkids-old BE, "ob'm up a can a whup-ass."
>
> --
> -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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>

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