[Ads-l] Eating food that has fallen onto the floor

[Charles C Doyle]

Re. eating "a pound of earth before you die":


More commonly, perhaps, "a pound (or a peck) of DIRT before you die."


--Charlie


________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Monday, December 25, 2017 3:36 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Eating food that has fallen onto the floor

That you can eat food that has fallen onto the floor, if you pick it up
within some random number of seconds, seems to be a widespread "rule." Or
not. I first heard it in Boston ca. 1996. My personal experience is that,
in general, people eat food that's fallen onto floor or they don't, without
saying anything about it

IAC, during Christmas (Eve) dinner, this "rule" was applied, motivating me
to note that, among black East Texans, people say that "a little grit is
good for your craw." One of my sisters-in-law remarked that she had grown
up [in NE PA] with the expression,

"You'll eat a pound of earth before you die."

That's a new one on me.

--
-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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