doughnuts = 'money' (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

>
> Daringly, HDAS offers _doughnut_, 'a dollar,' on the basis of a single
> 1979 citation (from Steve Martin's _The Jerk_). (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."
>

I'd imagine that the CNN weather guy was at least partially influenced
by a Dunkin Donuts commercial in which the cook has to show up early
(3-4 am).  In it, he arrives at the shop, bleary-eyed, in various forms
of bad weather, always saying "Have to make the donuts".  I think it was
a series of several commercials over a span of time, maybe the early
1990s?

At any rate, it is a literal use -- actual donuts have to be made --
rather than a figurative one where someone has to earn their money.


Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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