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

[Peter Reitan]

Newspapers.com has examples of a Vaudeville act in the 1900-1910s called 
the "Dancing Fools" and later called "The Girl and the Dancing Fool."

In 1920 there was a film called "The Dancing Fool."

And in 1922 there was a hit song called "The Dancing Fool" (A song 
called "Hot Lips" was out at the same time).

------ Original Message ------
From: "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at stanford.edu>
To: ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu
Sent: 4/26/2019 4:12:32 PM
Subject: "dancing fool" 'a fool for dancing'

>---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
>Subject:      "dancing fool" 'a fool for dancing'
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>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) th=
>e OED is at least temporarily unavailable to me.  it isn't crucial to my po=
>sting, but my curiosity has been piquied...
>
>is there literature about the the history of this expression?  is there a h=
>istory of a larger usage "V-ing fool"?  (or are such occurrences parasitic =
>on "dancing fool"?)
>
>arnold
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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