"spend a penny" -- the TLS is at it again.

[paul johnson]

paul johnson

If my father wanted to really irritate my mother in public, his phrase
was, "got to take the water off the potatoes"

On 10/8/2011 6:13 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> Could be. But "spend a penny" seems like a very vague excuse.
>
> My grandfather used to "see a man about a dog," but that referred to
> any sort of sudden departure from a small group including, but not
> restricted to, the "business" we're talking about.
>
> JL
>
> On Sat, Oct 8, 2011 at 3:04 AM, Eric Nielsen<ericbarnak at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Eric Nielsen<ericbarnak at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: "spend a penny" -- the TLS is at it again.
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Just a guess, but perhaps it's another business-referencing euphemism for
>> doing one's business. I've heard people say, "I've got to see a man about a
>> horse" when they're going to use the bathroom---but, I think
>> that means urination is involved. What did Freud say about horses?
>>
>> Eric
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 2:31 PM, Joel S. Berson<Berson at att.net>  wrote:
>>
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>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson"<Berson at ATT.NET>
>>> Subject:      Re: "spend a penny" -- the TLS is at it again.
>>>
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> At 10/7/2011 12:42 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>>> Precisely.
>>>>
>>>> If it's real and  - and even I have to admit it seems so - and refers to,
>>>> er, Number Two (as it seems to) I can only hark back to my Freudian ref.
>>> of
>>>> last week.
>>>>
>>>> Everything you want to know (and, of course, more) is here:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/feces
>>> Does this tell me about pennies?  If so, my search engine missed it.
>>>
>>> Seriously, are there any hypotheses -- now, since the 1700s antedate
>>> penny toilets, I assume -- as to the etymology of the expression?
>>>
>>> Joel
>>>
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>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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If you line up all the cars in the world end-to-end, someone would try to pass.

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