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.

Here you go.

1942 L. V. Berrey & M. Van den Bark _Amer. Thesaurus Slang_ (§124.5) 153
URINATE... piddle, piss... shake a sock, shake the lily _or_ the dew off
the lily, spring a leak, [etc.].

That's from the second printing, but this printing is also from 1942.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

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