Still More Bad Girl Talk

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:31 PM -0400 10/3/10, Wilson Gray wrote:
>  > "I would not screw Danielle with a homeless man's penis!" ? (Lady
>speaking.)
>
>We used to say,
>
>"I wouldn't fuck that skink with *your* dick!"
>
>This was quite popular, because it not only downs the the third
>person, but it also jones with the second person. And, if he wasn't
>quick enough on his mental feet to notice that, then he would be
>allowing himself to be fucked over.
>

Autobiographical note:
I first heard this, in the form of "I wouldn't screw her with
*yours*" or the slightly less inscrutably euphemistic "I wouldn't
fuck/screw her with *your* dick", in the summer of 1971 when I was
teaching a seminar on negation at the California summer program in
linguistics at the UC Santa Cruz.  It was volunteered as a more
colorful example of negative polarity item than the standard ones I'd
been citing ("any", "ever", "sleep a wink", "care to", "budge",
"need", etc.).  But I confess I had to have it explained to me--the
logic of "I wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole" I could
understand, but not that of the above, at least not until it was
patiently deconstructed for my edification...

LH

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