"Balls" goes mainstream and polite!

[George Thompson]

WG:
"Balls!" said the queen. "If I had them, then I'd be king!"

A common, nonsense - AFAIK - extension of the simple exclamation used among
EM, back when.

GAT:
I recall hearing this ca. 1960 as
"Balls!" said the queen. "If I had two, I would be king!" -- introducing a
play on "if I had two" and "If I had to" = "If I needed to".

GAT


On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 6:46 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> "Balls!" said the queen. "If I had them, then I'd be king!"
>
> A common, nonsense - AFAIK - extension of the simple exclamation used among
> EM, back when.
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 9:52 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      "Balls" goes mainstream and polite!
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > From a righty website:
> >
> >
> >
> http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/09/iowa-senate-hopeful-will-use-his-glock-to-blow-your-balls-off/
> >
> > JL
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> -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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>



-- 
George A. Thompson
The Guy Who Still Looks Stuff Up in Books.
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998..

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