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

[victor steinbok]

I'm a couple of days late on this but I do have a more recent "V-ing fool"
use. One of the "alternative" shaving equipment companies had a radio ad
over the past 3 years that included the phrase "Men are exfoliating fools".
The first time I heard it, it made me wonder if this was the "dancing fool"
sense or the regular one. The spot has tapered off this year so I'm not
likely to find the specific citation. But I also want to put in a word for
analyzing the language of radio advertising. Sometimes it makes you think
well beyond the marketer's intent.

VS-)

On Fri, Apr 26, 2019, 20:05 Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:

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> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "dancing fool" 'a fool for dancing'
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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"?)
> > >
> > >
> >
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>
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