"Slide down my cellar door" --> "most beautiful word" myth?

[Geoffrey Nunberg]

I have a post on LanguageLog (http://wp.me/pevV2-2TC) about this phrase, originally from two 1894 songs. I make it a possible (to my mind, even likely) source of the "most-beautiful-English-phrase" myth that Grant Barrett explored. Independent of that, until the mid-20th century the phrase served as  a cliche to evoke both innocent friendship and childish truculence, as in 
 If you see my friend Prince Krapotpin tell him I should be glad to have him holler down my rain barrel or slide down my cellar door any time. It is a hard thing to be a czar. Oak Park (IL) Argus, 1901

William Waldorf Astor seems to have carried into maturity the youthful feelings so beautifully expressed in ballads of the " you can't slide down my cellar door " school. Munsey’s magazine, 1901

The post itself was a bit long for this list, though that would probably be its natural venue.

Geoff

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