animals and non-animals

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Sun Feb 13 04:05:47 UTC 2011


On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 6:33 AM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:

> "I swan"

I've heard this in the wild and I've seen it in print, but I've never
had the impression that the expression had anything to do with the
bird.

My own *extremely* WAG is that it's some kind of modification or
distortion of _I swear_.

--
-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

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



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