[Ads-l] nobody's fool, 1835

[George Thompson]

OED:
nobody's fool  n. a sensible person who is not easily deceived.

1857   J. T. Trowbridge Neighbor Jackwood iii. iii. 41   Bein' I an't
nobody's fool, I was nat'rally ruther anxious to know what it was all
about.
1869   P. T. Barnum Struggles & Triumphs xxxvii. 587   Miss Warren is
nobody's fool.
1923   H. C. Witwer Fighting Blood xi. 323   Ryan is nobody's fool.
1940   N. Marsh Surfeit of Lampreys (1941) xv. 232   They've displayed
a surprising virtuosity. They're nobody's fools.
1959   ‘A. Fraser’ High Tension x. 103   He smiled slightly, and I
made a note that he was nobody's fool.
1985   S. Lowry Young Fogey Handbk. vii. 59   Young Fogey women
are..post-feminists..nobody's fools.


. . . mine host of the inn was a noble spirited, good natured soul,
or, as they say down east, "He was nobody's fool". . . .
S. B.  "Six Weeks' Ramble in the Northern Part of the State of
New-York."  New York Farmer, November 1835, p. 334, col. 1

Despite being a "down east" expression, it's not in DARE.
My father's version of this expression was "He's nobody's Indian" --
Father was born in Brooklyn in 1893.  His version is not in the OED
nor DARE.

GAT

-- 
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