Idiom: shake the dew off the lily (antedating 1951 probably)

[Garson O'Toole]

Jesse Sheidlower wrote
> Ah, but some of us have the original printing.
>
> 1949 V. J. Monteleone _Criminal Slang_ 204 SHAKE THE DEW OFF THE LILLY
> (V) To urinate.
>
> Ibid. 204 SHAKE THE LILLY (V) To urinate.

Great! Thanks for checking, Jesse. Here is a potential lead for
Jonathon Green (and others) to an earlier work.

The 1942 edition of "The American thesaurus of slang; a complete
reference book of colloquial speech" by Lester V. Berrey and Melvin
Van den Bark published by Thomas Y. Crowell company of New York may
have the phrase.

Google Books blocks the previews of the various editions of this work,
so this search is "blind".

According to HathiTrust the phrase "shake the lily" and the word "dew"
both appear on page 153. Of course, the page numbering of HathiTrust
is sometimes inaccurate, but the index could prove useful.

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015078250662

Google Books claims matches for "shake the lily" in the 1942 and the
1947 edition. Since multiple editions with different dates are
available the GB dates are not reliable. Also, "shake the lily" may
have another meaning.

Garson

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