[Ads-l] "dancing fool" 'a fool for dancing'

[Jonathan Lighter]

And you could check HDAS under "fool."

JL

On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 8:05 PM Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:

> Zappa sang Dancin' Fool on SNL on 10/21/78
> DanG
>
> On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 7:57 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > OED's no help, but here are some notable occurrences of "dancing/dancin'
> > fool":
> >
> > "The Dancin' Fool" (1920 silent comedy film)
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dancin%27_Fool
> >
> > "The Dancing Fool" (1932 animated cartoon with Betty Boop)
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dancing_Fool
> >
> > "Dancin' Fool" (1974 song by The Guess Who)
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancin%27_Fool_(The_Guess_Who_song)
> >
> > "Dancin' Fool" (1979 song by Frank Zappa)
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancin%27_Fool
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 7:12 PM Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > i've stumbled on this formulaic expression in preparing a posting (it
> > > comes up in a song from the Broadway show "Once Upon a Mattress", a
> song
> > > sung by the Jester -- i.e., a fool), and started to track it down, but
> easy
> > > places on the net provided nothing useful, and (in my latest computer
> > > screwup) the OED is at least temporarily unavailable to me.  it isn't
> > > crucial to my posting, but my curiosity has been piquied...
> > >
> > > is there literature about the the history of this expression?  is
> there a
> > > history of a larger usage "V-ing fool"?  (or are such occurrences
> parasitic
> > > on "dancing fool"?)
> > >
> > >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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