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

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 06:08:21PM -0400, Garson O'Toole wrote:
> 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.

The phrase is in the 1953 second edition in the correct sense. I can
check the '42 and '47 versions tomorrow.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

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