early "tits"

[Eric Nielsen]

When I first heard that expression I thought it was "useless as tits on a
board"-- which made sense in an absurdist kind of way.

Years ago, in local shipyard parlance, all the unwanted pieces of metal
left sticking out of a bulkhead prior to painting were called "tits". As in
the boss would call you in and say, "OK, I want you to grind off all the
tits in here".

Eric

On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 7:29 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>  But cf. "useless as tits on a boar[-hog]" in HDAS....Er, well, never mind
> that....
>
> JL
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 1:25 AM, 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: early "tits"
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 3:31 PM, Jonathan Lighter <
> wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > not breasts but nipples
> > >
> >
> > Exactly. "Teat" as "breast" strikes me as, well, messed up. Boar-hogs and
> > bullamacows (WAG: < "bull, a man cow"; used only in Marshall, Texas, BE,
> > AFAIK) have "teats" and not "tits."
> >
> > --
> > -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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> >
>
>
>
> --
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