doughnuts = 'money'

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:46 AM -0400 6/9/11, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Daringly, HDAS offers _doughnut_, 'a dollar,' on the basis of a single 1979
>citation (from Steve Martin's _The Jerk_).

That would make the "dollars to doughnuts" conversion pretty straightforward.

(I assume the "dough" part of "doughnut" is instrumental in the below.)

LH

>  (My policy was to include
>single-cite senses of polysemous main entries when the sense seemed
>especially plausible and likely to be widely broadcast, as in Steve Martin's
>_The Jerk_).
>
>The weather guy on CNN has just warned people who work outdoors in 90 degree
>heat to take it easy today, even though "you have to make your doughnuts, so
>to speak."
>
>A Google search for "is a lot of doughnuts" turned this up from 2009 - along
>with many other exx.: [http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/05-8]: $6.3
>billion. That is a lot of doughnuts -- a system-distorting, potentially
>corrupting amount of cash.
>
>GB reveals only one monetary "is a lot doughnuts," from 2008.
>
>JL
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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