[Ads-l] RES: ankle-biters

[dave@wilton.net]

I’ve been hearing “ankle-biters” meaning children since the late 1980s
-----Original Message-----
From: "Dave Hause" <dwhause at CABLEMO.NET>
Sent: Wednesday, May 9, 2018 12:05pm
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] RES: ankle-biters



I think it actually started with Chihuahuas and similar doglets and 
generalized to other small nuisances.
Dave Hause

-----Original Message----- 
From: David Daniel
Sent: Wednesday, May 9, 2018 10:46 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: RES: ankle-biters

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

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