Another non-metaphor

Charles C Doyle cdoyle at UGA.EDU
Mon Mar 24 12:10:07 UTC 2014


Regarding Wilson's "cat butter" for 'hardened periocular discharge':  In _American Speech_ 53 (1978) 214, Sarah Lawson reported "duck butter" in that sense (other _AS_ notes on the general subject:  55 (1980) 160;  56 (1981) 16; 56 (1981) 79-80; 57 (1982) 160).  Of course, more commonly "duck butter" refers to 'smegma'.  In _AS_ 72 (1997) 182, however, I mentioned an early reference to "goose butter" in the 'sleep' sense--from Ireland.

Charlie

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