Another non-metaphor

[Jonathan Lighter]

See HDAS for "duck butter," which I've never heard used and which would
seem more likely to mean "semen," at least originally. But we'll pass over
that discussion.

My grandmother (b. NYC, 1888) called the stuff in my eyes "sleep."

JL


On Sun, Jun 1, 2014 at 4:06 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Another non-metaphor
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 8:10 AM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
>
> > "duck butter" refers to 'smegma'
>
>
> Thanks, Charlie! I've wondered about that since I heard "duck butter" used
> in Marshall, back in '48, where it definitely was *not* the same thing as
> cat butter, but it was never clear to me exactly what duck butter was and
> I've never heard either term used anywhere else.
>
> I wasn't in the habit of squaring off asking about something that was
> apparently common knowledge to everyone else. Besides, I had become "a
> stranger in my own hometown," as the blues line goes, by that time, living
> in StL and only "summering" back down home in Marshall. Asking a dumb
> question would have underlined my outsiderness.
>
>
> --
> -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
>
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