Another non-metaphor

[Laurence Horn]

On Jun 1, 2014, at 4:06 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 8:10 AM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
>
>> "duck butter" refers to 'smegma'

Also "semen"; Jon has an entry in HDAS with cites for both meanings, dating back to 1933.  Antedates anyone?

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

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