the birds and the bees
Wilson Gray
hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Thu Sep 29 05:19:45 UTC 2011
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 1:33 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> quoted:
> 1887 Emma Marwedel _Conscious Motherhood_ (Chicago: Interstate) 283:
> Another resemblance to the human family I will mention. All little children
> have papas and mammas, you know, and so have all flower babies. It is true,
> these vegetable parents usually resemble each other more exactly than human
> papas and mammas do, but sometimes they are even more different from each
> other in appearance than are your own dear papa and mamma. Sometimes,
> indeed, the flower papa lives on an entirely separate tree, or bush, from
> the flower mamma, as in the date-palm and others; but when he does, he is
> always _sending_ her _love messages and gifts by the birds and the bees_.
Thank you, Jon. Heretofore, the allusion was a complete mystery to me.
Now, I can die knowing more than I knew, before.
--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list