[Ads-l] _broker than the Ten Commandments_

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Date: September 5, 1937
Newspaper: Valley Morning Star
Newspaper Location: Harlingen, Texas
Article: Our Valley Vintage
Author: P. E. Montgomery
Quote Page 16, Column 1
Database: Newspapers.com

[Begin excerpt]
Money was that easy in the City of Palms at that time. The broom corn
man lives in McAllen today, broker than the ten commandments, while
the car man moved of California and we understand grew rich-dealing in
fast selling Los Angeles city property.
[End excerpt]


A dictionary of American regionalisms asserted that the expression was
common in the 1930s. Oddly, the illustrative citation was from 1996.

Year: 2000
Book: The Facts on File Dictionary of American Regionalisms
Author: Robert Hendrickson
Publisher: Facts on File, New York
Page 606

[Begin excerpt]
broker than the Ten Commandments A phrase common in the 1930s.
"'Listen, bud, I'm flat broke. I'm broker'n the Ten Commandments.'"
(Henry Roth, From Bondage, 1996)
[End excerpt]


On Fri, Apr 15, 2016 at 8:33 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 15, 2016 at 8:24 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Louis Armstrong
>
>
> Yeah. It seemed like a hip term, till I found it in the LHJ.
>
> Youneverknow.
>
>
> --
> -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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org