[Ads-l] "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row."

[David Barnhart]

I’d be hanging from the scaffold!

Sent from my iPhone

> On Nov 11, 2018, at 9:29 PM, Ann Burlingham <ann at BURLINGHAMBOOKS.COM> wrote:
> 
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ann Burlingham <ann at BURLINGHAMBOOKS.COM>
> Subject:      "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row."
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Google Ngrams tells me that "to a public hanging" has been used in a tiny
> fraction of books from 1800-2018, so I'm curious whether any on this list
> know if "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row" or
> some version of it is a common phrase, sentiment, or saying, as the
> Mississippi Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith seems to imply:
> 
> https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/mississippi-senator-praises-man-public-hanging-remark-59127299
> 
> A newly published video shows a white Republican U.S. senator in
> Mississippi praising someone by saying: "If he invited me to a public
> hanging, I'd be on the front row."
> 
> Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who faces a black Democratic challenger in a Nov. 27
> runoff, said Sunday that her Nov. 2 remark was "exaggerated expression of
> regard" for someone who invited her to speak and "any attempt to turn this
> into a negative connotation is ridiculous."
> 
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