[Ads-l] RES: ankle-biters

[David Daniel]

Ankle biters are kids, I believe.
DAD

-----Mensagem original-----
De: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] Em nome de
George Thompson
Enviada em: quarta-feira, 9 de maio de 2018 12:26
Para: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Assunto: ankle-biters

-
>From an article in the Business section of today's (Wednesday's) NYTimes,
about plans to include hotels in housing,
=E2=80=8B =E2=80=8B
office, restaurant and shopping projects:

=E2=80=9CIf you have a successful mixed-use center with lots of apparel sto=
res,
you=E2=80=99ll attract tenants and it=E2=80=99s less likely that a shopping=
 center will be
built near you,=E2=80=9D said Ms. Olshan, whose firm expects to open a hote=
l and
retail development in Boston=E2=80=99s Haymarket district this year. =E2=80=
=9CBut with
hotels, we=E2=80=99re seeing more and more ankle biters.=E2=80=9D

=E2=80=8BI get the idea here, I suppose, more or less, but the image is cer=
tainly
strange.  Are the ankle-biters unforeseen problems, or =E2=80=8Bforeseen pr=
oblems,
or what?  I know the expression that something or other "will come back to
bite him someday".  I don't think I've heard is as "come back to bite him
in the ankle".  But then, I'm often out-of-touch.

GAT

--=20
George A. Thompson
The Guy Who Still Looks Stuff Up in Books.
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998.

But when aroused at the Trump of Doom / Ye shall start, bold kings, from
your lowly tomb. . .
L. H. Sigourney, "Burial of Mazeen", Poems.  Boston, 1827, p. 112

The Trump of Doom -- also known as The Dunghill Toadstool.  (Here's a
picture of his great-grandfather.)
http://www.parliament.uk/worksofart/artwork/james-gillray/an-excrescence---=
a-fungus-alias-a-toadstool-upon-a-dunghill/3851

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


---
Este email foi escaneado pelo Avast antivírus.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

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