Not in HDAS?

[Jonathan Lighter]

My innocent interpretation of "Deadbone" was that it was just an arbitrary
name for a cartoon strip.  That's the only association I have with it.

And I know "Stavin' Chain" only as the title of a bawdy African-American
folksong - sung, e.g., in a tame by "Tricky Sam" of the Texas State
Penitentiary at Huntsville for John and Alan Lomax in 1934.

It starts out, "Stavin' Chain was a man like this...."

What's a real stavin' chain anyway? What's the connection with what you
said?

JL

On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 12:46 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Not in HDAS?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I looked - only cursorily, I admit, but WTF; presbyopia, glaucoma, and
> cataracts - and didn't "see," using the word loosely, _deadbone_.
>
> The Official Bode' Site > Articles > I See My Light Come Shining
> (Its title changed to _Deadbone_ Erotica in _May 1970_, to Deadbone
> Erotica, One Billion BC in May 1972, and to Bode Erotica six months
> after that.
> www.markbode.com/ site/ article_2.html
>
> I first came across _deadbone_ used in a story in the National
> Lampoon, where it had the meaning of "impotence." I have no
> recollection - yes, I'm serious! - of when. My best WAG is, between
> 1975 and 1977.
>
> I know who Bode was, but I'm not at all familiar with the op. cit.
>
>
> How about the proper name, _Stavin Chain_, used with the meaning, "penis"?
>
> --
> -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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