[Ads-l] Modern Proverb: Tie - like kissing your sister

Charles C Doyle cdoyle at UGA.EDU
Sun Oct 2 18:15:22 UTC 2016


The feeble _Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs_, edited by Jennifer Speake and John Simpson (2008), p. 8, gives this saying from 1929--though I doubt if it was ever a proverb!


--Charlie

________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton3 at VIRGINMEDIA.COM>
Sent: Sunday, October 2, 2016 2:07:35 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Modern Proverb: Tie - like kissing your sister

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Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Poster:       Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton3 at VIRGINMEDIA.COM>
Subject:      Re: Modern Proverb: Tie - like kissing your sister
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A further variant (which I remember hearing but can't source):

"Apple pie without cheese / is like a kiss without a squeeze."

Robin

>
>     On 02 October 2016 at 19:02 "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:
>
>
>     On 10/1/2016 1:17 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
>     > ...
>     >
>     > Below is the same simile in April 1892 applied to typewritten letters
>     > from sweethearts. This citation is a couple months before the one
>     > listed by Barry, but the ascription, acknowledgement, and text are the
>     > same.
>     >
>     > Date: April 3, 1892
>     > Newspaper: The Times
>     > Newspaper Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
>     > Article: Observations
>     > Acknowledgement: From Kate Field's Washington
>     > Quote Page 14, Column 5
>     >
>     > https://www.newspapers.com/image/52505724/?terms=kissing
>     >
>     > [Begin excerpt]
>     > Observations
>     > >From Kate Field's Washington
>     > Reading a typewritten letter from your sweetheart is like kissing your
>     > sister.
>     > [End excerpt]
>     --
>
>     Another analogous item, from Google Books, 1871:
>
>     <<Champagne without ice is like kissing one's sister-in-law -- it's
>     insipid.>>
>
>     ... apparently spoken by a female character in the novel "Not Wooed, But
>     Won".
>
>     -- Doug Wilson
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------
>     The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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