megilla

[Jonathan Lighter]

You'll recall that Lucy Ricardo's maiden name (oops! "birth name"!) was
McGillicuddy.

So that played a role too.

JL

On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 10:42 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: megilla
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Well, if we're not going with "megillah", I vote for a truncation of
> McGillicuddy.  If you check out the results for the "Dark and Stormy
> Night" contest for the worst opening line of a (nonexistent) novel in
> honor of Bulwer-Lytton at http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/dark.htm,
> you'll see that the second entry reads as follows:
>
> ===============
>     "Fightin' Joe" Steerforth thought he was tough until the day he
> met Annie ("Big Bucket") McGillicuddy and she left him battered and
> spent like a punch-drunk prizefighter on the ropes of love.
>     --John Stark Bellamy II, Cleveland Heights, Ohio
> ===============
>
> --LH, also wondering whether "Megillah" might be the actual first
> name of "House"'s Dr. Cuddy
>
> At 1:14 PM +0000 10/27/10, ronbutters at aol.com wrote:
> >blend of MEGA and GONZILLA
> >------Original Message------
> >From: Joel S. Berson
> >Sender: ADS-L
> >To: ADS-L
> >ReplyTo: ADS-L
> >Subject: Re: [ADS-L] megilla
> >Sent: Oct 26, 2010 12:40 PM
> >
> >At 10/26/2010 12:21 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >>Tony Harris on CNN: "This is just a *magilla* of a storm!  *There's* a
> word
> >>a haven't used in a long time!"
> >
> >Did he mean a long and tedious storm?  Quoth the OED, Megillah, n.
> >sense 2:  "2. slang. [With allusion to the length of the Megillah.] A
> >long, tedious, or complicated story".
> >
> >But probably not.  Just another example of Jew-baiting.
> >
> >Joel
> >
> >
> >
> >>250 RGs for "magilla of a."
> >>
> >>I assume this has been influenced by "The Magilla Gorilla Show"
> >>(1963-1967).  It's a gorilla of a storm. You know, a monster.
> >>
> >  >JL
> >>
> >>--
> >>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >>
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--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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