[Ads-l] "You [X] 'em, we [X-rhyme] 'em"

[Laurence Horn]

On a less (or differently) grisly note, there’s the Road Kill Café, with its slogan “You kill it, we grill it”:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g31353-d514634-r235802746-Road_Kill_Cafe_O_K_Saloon-Seligman_Arizona.html

"The Roadkill Cafe has a bit of an old Route 66 diner feel to it (so we had to have pie!), with the added bonus of the museum-esk part.”

If you want to order the T-shirt...
https://www.zazzle.com/roadkill_cafe_you_kill_it_we_grill_it_t_shirt-235634034871641446

LH


> On Jun 4, 2017, at 10:46 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Here is a match for one of JL's rhymes in 1948.
> 
> Date: January 11, 1948
> Newspaper: The Indianapolis Star
> Newspaper Location: Indianapolis, Indiana
> Quote Page 21, Column 1
> Database: Newspapers.com
> 
> [Begin excerpt]
> EX-MAYOR GEORGE L. DENNY phoned the home of his son, George H. Denny,
> The Star outdoors columnist, the other day and was startled to be
> greeted with: "City Morgue—You kill 'em, we chill 'em!" Mr. Denny
> almost fell out of his chair. Then he discovered it was his
> granddaughter, Linda Denny, 13, answering the phone with one of the
> greetings affected by some of today's teen-agers.
> [End excerpt]
> 
> There is an ambiguous statement in a 1934 comic strip. A criminal
> knocks out a lawman by striking him on the head with the butt of a
> gun. The criminal plans to kill the lawman. In the final panel the
> criminal tells another observer: "IN MY BUSINESS WE CHILL 'EM FIRST
> AND THEN....". It is possible that the implied continuation is "WE
> KILL 'EM".
> 
> The next comic in the series does not show any continuation of the
> statement, but the plot development shows the criminal attempting to
> kill the lawman.
> 
> Newspaper: The Daily Courier
> Newspaper Location: Connellsville, Pennsylvania
> Date: August 20, 1934
> Comic: Bobby Thatcher--Double Trouble!! by George Storm
> Quote Page 6
> Database: Newspapers.com
> [Begin excerpt]
> WHAT'RE YOU SQUAWKIN' FOR, BUDDY?...IN MY BUSINESS WE CHILL 'EM FIRST
> AND THEN....
> [End excerpt]
> 
> Garson
> 
> On Sun, Jun 4, 2017 at 9:36 AM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at mst.edu> wrote:
>> During the Vietnam War, ca. 1967, there was an American field hospital
>> 
>> with the (handwritten?) sign in front: "You find 'em, we bind 'em."
>> 
>> 
>> G. Cohen
>> 
>> ________________________________
>> 
>> Original message from Jonathan Lighter, June 4, 2017:
>> Back around 1980-81, I had a university acquaintance who would frequently
>> answer with a selection from among these sayings:
>> 
>> "City Morgue: You kill 'em, we chill 'em!"
>> 
>> "City Morgue: You stab' em, we slab 'em!"
>> 
>> "Abortion Clinic: You rape 'em, we scrape 'em. No fetus can beat us."
>> 
>> Now I read in Hugh Gusterson's informative _Drone_ (Cambridge: MIT Press,
>> 2016), p. 9, that,
>> 
>> "'You Track 'Em, We Whack 'Em,' is the informal motto of the team at the
>> National Security Agency that collects and analyzes ... cell phone data
>> [that may serve to identify the whereabouts of prominent terrorists]."
>> 
>> Googling "You kill 'em, we chill 'em" turns up approx. one zillion
>> instances of this pattern.
>> 
>> How far back can this black-humor genre be traced?
>> 
>> JL
>> 
>> --
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>> 
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>> 
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>> 
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>> www.americandialect.org
>> Devoted to the study of English around the world.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
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