[Ads-l] siftless

[Ben Zimmer]

On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 11:44 PM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>
> On 3/29/2015 9:24 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
> >
> > I don't see this word on the Oxford Dictionary site or in Wiktionary.
> >
> > AFAIK, it's used only in expressions like "between shiftless and
> > siftless in the dictionary" (meaning "shit"). Presumably it means the
> > same thing as "shiftless."
> >
> > I don't know that I've heard this sort of expression since hearing it in
> > Alaska in the early 1980s. Google and Google Books yield no results for
> > "shiftless and shiftless."
> >
> > There's an unrelated meaning for "siftless" at
> > http://www.definition-of.com/siftless, though I don't know if that's
> > actually in use.
>
> I suspect not unrelated.
>
> I suppose the phrase is based on the understanding that there is a
> loathsome disease named "siftless", this word originally being
> "syphilis", transmitted [the word, that is] orally.
> [...]
> I suppose the intention is/was to bracket whatever is being derogated
> (i.e., "shit") between two words which themselves have negative denotations.

"You'll get no sympathy from me! You want sympathy, look in the
dictionary between shit and syphilis!"
--"Major Payne" (1995)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110443/quotes

Googling for "sympathy," "shit," and "syphilis" reveals many
variations on this theme. The earliest I've found is from Grover
Lewis's article, "Splendor in the Short Grass: The Making of the Last
Picture Show" (_Rolling Stone_, Sept. 2, 1971, reprinted in _Splendor
in the Short Grass: The Grover Lewis Reader_, 2005).

"In a sudden hush, the cameras begin to roll, but Cybill blows the
take by missing her mark parking the convertible. When she stammers
out an apology, the sound mixer stage-whispers gruffly: 'Sympathy can
be found in the dictionary between shit and syphilis, sister.'"

https://books.google.com/books?id=YvMhSH0x8voC&pg=PA27
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/25/the-stacks-how-peter-bogdanovich-shot-the-last-picture-show.html

Garson has collected some other dictionary-order sayings on Quote Investigator:

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/10/20/dict/
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/12/03/duty-pleasure/

--bgz

-- 
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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