Mark Twain's profanity

[victor steinbok]

Yes, "deep in the shit", "deep in the doo-doo", "deep in shit" and
"deep in doo/poo/kimchee" are all there, but I am not sure they are
the same. For one, the phrases I covered were all interchangeably "in
the X" and "deep in the X". "Deep" just made them more emphatic. I am
not convinced that "deep in the shit" can be equivalently contracted
to "in the shit", but that might just be a personal stylistic
preference. Perhaps I'm just making a mountain out of a cow pile.

In contrast, the "soup/stew/juice/sauce" and "weeds" may be closer
paralleled by "swamp/muck", as in "deep in the muck" and "in the
swamp" (with variants "Y-deep in the X" for swamp/muck that actually
*are* similar to shit/doo-doo, but I am yet to find "knee-deep in the
soup", or similar).

There is also "[deep/down] in the dumps", but that's a different
meaning (usually either depressed or economically poor, not
"overwhelmed"). This one also may be closer to "shit". But the kitchen
metaphors and "weeds" simply don't cross over.

VS-)

On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 10:03 AM, William Palmer <palmerwil at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Classic euphemism, courtesy of Geo. H. W. Bush..."in deep doo-doo"
>
> Bill Palmer
>
> On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 9:44 AM, James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com> <
> JJJRLandau at netscape.com> wrote:
>
...
>> Other comments:
>>
>> Re: "in the X":  you seem to have overlooked the common expressions "in
>> deep shit" and what appears to be its euphemized version "in deep kimche".
>>  I do not recall any other synonyms besides kimche.  Probably not important,
>> but I first recall hearing "in deep kimche" in the late 1970's from a
>> retired military warrant officer who had served at least one tour in Korea
>> and had at one time been a mess sergeant.
>>   Then there was the coworker of mine, originally from West Virginia, who
>> said of a supervisor "he's a lost ball in tall grass".

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