[Ads-l] "snatch a knot in" = "hit, spank"

[Wilson Gray]

Pretty common all over the place. That white people also use it is news to
me, though. Jim Crow really worked!

On Wed, Jul 26, 2017 at 8:08 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole <
adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:

> Newspapers.com has some interesting matches:
>
> Date: March 13, 1889
> Newspaper: Our Mountain Home
> Newspaper Location: Talladega, Alabama
> Database: Newspapers.com
>
> https://www.newspapers.com/image/306632869/
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> This is a high compliment to the American press, but the chances are,
> if Whitelaw accepts, that he will want to fly the bloody shirt from
> Parliament House, and jerk a knot in the tail of the British lion
> before he has been in London a day.
> [End excerpt]
>
>
> Garson
>
> On Wed, Jul 26, 2017 at 7:13 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
> > A commenter noted the related expression "jerk a knot in (someone's)
> tail,"
> > which HDAS includes. I've added an update to the Strong Language post.
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Jul 26, 2017 at 6:32 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Now blogged on Strong Language...
> >>
> >> https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2017/07/26/snatch-a-knot-in-their-ass/
> >>
> >> On Wed, Jul 26, 2017 at 4:55 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> An earlier cite from Georgia:
> >>>
> >>> Macon (Ga.), Telegraph, Apr. 15, 1941, p. 4, co. 5 [Genealogybank]
> >>> BUT if he [F.D.R.] expects ALL the people to "rally round the flag,
> boys"
> >>> and do it with a snap and determination he'll have to snatch a knot in
> the
> >>> tails of those hellions who are deliberately trying to tie up
> production --
> >>> and do it NOW.
> >>> --J.N. Foreman, Norman Park, Ga.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Wed, Jul 26, 2017 at 4:42 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/suddenly-everyone-is-snatch
> >>>> ing-a-knot-and-heres-why-2017-07-26
> >>>> Expressing befuddlement — and engendering it at the same time — over
> the
> >>>> Senate’s failure to pass, as yet, any of its several legislative
> efforts to
> >>>> overhaul the Affordable Care Act, Rep. Buddy Carter, a Georgia
> Republican,
> >>>> offered a colorful and presumably aggressive strategy during an MSNBC
> >>>> interview Wednesday: "Somebody needs to go over there to that Senate
> and
> >>>> snatch a knot in their ass."
> >>>>
> >>>> Video here:
> >>>> https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/890295376611344385
> >>>>
> >>>> Twitter thread discussing the expression:
> >>>> https://twitter.com/mattizcoop/status/890289306857811968
> >>>>
> >>>> I don't see anything in the slang dictionaries on this. It appears to
> be
> >>>> primarily a Southernism -- perhaps originating in Georgia and the
> Florida
> >>>> panhandle. The earliest cite I found is from Pensacola, Fla., and the
> >>>> second earliest is from Roy Blount Jr., who grew up in Decatur, Ga.
> >>>>
> >>>> ----
> >>>> Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, Dec. 25, 1978, p. 64
> >>>> "Santa pulls them aside and gives them the word he's going to snatch a
> >>>> knot in their heads if they don't behave," he says with a twinkle in
> his
> >>>> eye.
> >>>> https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/265357254/
> >>>> ----
> >>>> Roy Blount Jr., _One Fell Soup: Or, I'm Just a Bug on the Windshield
> of
> >>>> Life_, 1982 [1984], p. 71
> >>>> "But if you could find it in your heart not to saddle them with a
> >>>> criminal record, could you just let me snatch a knot in them?"
> >>>> And I would snatch a knot in them.
> >>>> I don't mean physically. I don't pound on my children.
> >>>> https://books.google.com/books?id=56w6u-oNtRMC
> >>>> ----
> >>>> Springfield (Mo.) Leader and Press, June 16, 1986, p. 11
> >>>> I am willing to concede my suggestion that those people snatch a knot
> in
> >>>> that child might be ill-founded.
> >>>> https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/309489104/
> >>>> ----
> >>>> Philadelphia Daily News, Sep. 28, 1987, p. 37
> >>>> If you read the piece carefully, you can feel the pain and indignation
> >>>> of a parent who would snatch a knot in her child before she would see
> him
> >>>> become one the vermin who sell death and misery on street corners.
> >>>> https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/186270600/
> >>>> ----
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
-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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