[Ads-l] "Chicken fight"

[Laurence Horn]

> On Mar 15, 2016, at 8:52 PM, Geoffrey Steven Nathan <geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU> wrote:
> 
> When I was studying karate in the seventies in Hawaii our instructor referred to undisciplined flailing during a sparring match as 'chickenfighting'. It certainly brought up a different image from cockfighting, and I never, at the time, thought of it as euphemistic. But perhaps it's a Hawaiian term.
> 
> Geoff

I remember "chicken fighting" as something very different from cock fighting, and not something that would need to be broken up by the police (but maybe by a zealous lifeguard): in the swimming pool (although a lake might be possible), two people, often but not always of the female persuasion, sitting on the shoulders of two other people, often but not necessarily of the male persuasion, try to wrestle each other off and into the pool.    Here's a vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEfi0Obh0sg

Definitely *not* a cock fight.

LH 
> 
> Geoffrey S. Nathan
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> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2016 8:18 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: "Chicken fight"
> 
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Chicken fight"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>> On Mar 15, 2016, at 7:45 PM, Joel Berson <berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
>> =20
>> "Group arraigned in chicken fight case".
>> =20
>> I doubt if the police would have probable cause for assault charges if =
> everyone ran away.
> 
> The downside of taboo avoidance (can't call it cock fighting anymore, it =
> appears).
> 
> LH
>> =20
>> Headline in Boston Globe today.
>> =20
>> Joel
>> =20
>> =20
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