[Ads-l] _on the bone_ in the UD

[Jonathan Lighter]

The troll's "bone" means "to filch; steal."

JL

On Thu, Mar 8, 2018 at 12:14 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:

> IIRC, the line in context is
>
> Troll's old seat is still the same
> and the bone he boned from its owner.
>  Doner,
>  Boner!
> Troll's old seat is still the same
> and the bone he boned from its owner.
>
> The two one-word lines are part of the song's structure, where between the
> last two lines and their repetition come two trochees, rhyming with the
> last word, not necessarily making sense.
>
> Way back when I was in high school and LotR had only been released in the
> US for a year or two, I said to a classmate something like "I've made up a
> tune for the troll song," and sang the first verse. She answered "That's
> 'The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night'!" (as the title goes around here), and
> of course it was, with only minor deviations. I'd recognized the unique
> structure without realizing it and used the tune that it went with.
>
> Mark, music magnet (not magnate, alas)
>
>
> On Mar 7, 2018 10:25 AM, "Barretts Mail" <mail.barretts at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” also has the word in the troll poem (“The Fox Went
> out on a Stormy Night”). BB
> ​
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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