[Ads-l] Higgly-piggly

[Laurence Horn]

On Dec 13, 2014, at 8:16 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> At 12/13/2014 08:11 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>> Well, the (little) red hen is too busy doing this and doing that herself (when all of the others are too lazy to help out)
> 
> Or too overwhelmed trying to write double dactyls.
> 
> Joel

Higgamus hogamous
Hens are monogamous,
Hoggamus higgamus,
Roosters polygamous.

As Dorothy Parker might have written if she weren't too chicken.  Or Ogden Nash, or someone else.  ("No decisive candidate for authorship has yet emerged in QI’s opinion" for the original quatrain.)

LH

> 
>> that she has no time to spare to lay eggs for gentlemen even if any of them were around.  It might be argued that all those other animals may have just been too stuck up to pitch in anyway, since they keep declining the "Who will help me" requests with "Not I" instead of "Not me".
>> 
>> LH
>> 
>> 
>> On Dec 13, 2014, at 7:58 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>> 
>> > Black vastly outnumbers white (and red) on Google.
>> >
>> > Perhaps for Wilson a black hen serving gentlemen has unpleasant racial overtones?
>> >
>> > Joel
>> >
>> > At 12/13/2014 06:29 PM, Jocelyn Limpert wrote:
>> >> My hen was black, not white! lol
>> >>
>> >> Jocelyn
>> >>
>> >> On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 6:23 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:      Re: Higgly-piggly
>> >> >
>> >> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >> >
>> >> > On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 5:22 PM, Jocelyn Limpert <
>> >> > jocelyn.limpert at gmail.com>
>> >> > wrote:
>> >> > >
>> >> > > I've always thought it was "higgeldy-piggeldy" as well.
>> >> > >
>> >> >
>> >> > Me, three. "Higgly-Piggly" is news to me.
>> >> >
>> >> > Higgledy-piggledy
>> >> > My white hen
>> >> > She lays eggs
>> >> > For gentlemen
> 
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