Slang: _good thing_

[Jonathan Lighter]

Yeah, I left out "natural" (and maybe "natural-born" as well) for being
more "colloquial" than "slang," but let me quote (from memory) a caption
from a New Yorker cartoon of a few years back:

Very anxious-looking guy is driving at night. Shapeless bug-eyed blob is in
the shotgun seat. Blob points out the window to a side road through the
woods, saying:

"That way madness lies. If that's still an issue."

JL



On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 6:13 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Slang: _good thing_
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> HDAS
>
> "… a person who may easily or profitably be swindled or exploited.
> 1909 I was kept in reserve to skin good things..."
>
> This meaning of _good thing_ is still alive and kicking natural ass in
> BE, particularly in the "exploit" sense. A common admonition is
>
> "Don't *never* let nobody use you / take you for a natural good thing!"
>
> It's always pronounced as though spelled _goodthing_.
>
> OTOH, I didn't find _natural_ as an emphatic or an intensifier in HDAS
> and I didn't expect to. But, when you fuck with Jon / HDAS,
>
> Youneverknow.
>
> IAC, as expected, I was able to find recent examples of this use with ease.
>
> "D-_Natural_ Blues": the punning title of a 1949 instrumental
> recording by Lucius "Lucky" Millinder and his orquestra.
>
> "(You Make Me Feel Like) A _Natural_ Woman," 1967, by Carol King dba
> Aretha Franklin.
>
> Black Cop
> books.google.com
> Joseph Nazel - 1993 - 224 pages
> He would kick her _natural_ ass and she would love him all the more.
>
> What We Did for Love
>
> books.google.com
> Teresa McClain-Watson - 2004 - 368 pages
> And you tell him that, if he does not take my call, he'll be sorry,
> because I'll come to
> his office and show off my _natural_ ass — you hear me?
>
> "Show _off_ my natural ass" is unexpected, because _show off_ has only
> the standard-English meaning of "flaunt," etc.
>
> Everything I Miss At Home
> books.google.com
> Dawn - 2011
> I knew the last place to act out was at Dream, and here this ghetto
> Nikki came up
> here, _showing her natural ass_ for real!
>
> It's _to show one's ass_ that properly means "to cause/create a scene."
>
> Matriarchs - Page 138
> books.google.com/books?isbn=1420846078
> Kevin B. Niblet - 2005 - Preview
> Soon Willie was suspended in mid air with nothing but _natural_ ass
> exposed ...
>
> Without Warning
> books.google.com
> John Birmingham - 2009 - 528 pages
> “And that was my _natural_ ass-scratching hand, too."
>
> -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
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org