[Ads-l] _on the bone_ "ithyphallic"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Back in my day,  "boner" was a common and polite term for an embarrassing
error.

No more. (Of course, I exaggerate; but it's been decades since I last heard
someone say it.)

JL



On Sun, Jun 18, 2017 at 12:27 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> Now in the UD, since 2006, in fact:
> Urban Dictionary: on the bone
> www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=on%20the%20bone
> Having an erect penis; having a boner; having a hard on [sic]; being on
> hard.
>
>
> I first heard this in 1947. In fact, that's the *only* time that I've ever
> heard it. But I found it quite catchy. Among black men of my generation,
> _on hard_ is the ordinary use. I first heard _boner_ in the relevant sense
> at UC Davis in 1969, and both _to bone_ and _bone-room_ in the 1988 movie,
> School Daze.
>
> --
> -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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org