[Ads-l] break one's leg

[Andy Bach]

Slightly OT but I just got this from a friend with a possible genisis:
> Ever play Skyrim? Fun video game. There's a running joke/meme in the game, where your character encounters old men who say,
> "I used to be an adventurer like you. But then I took an arrow to the knee."
> Which apparently is an old saying akin to "shotgun wedding," where some young dude got a girl pregnant, and her dad threatened to shoot him in the knee with an arrow if he didn't get down on it to propose.

On Thu, Jul 16, 2020 at 10:44 AM Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Joan, the pleasure was mine.
>
> (I mean in finding the cite.)
>
> JL
>
> On Thu, Jul 16, 2020 at 8:58 AM Joan Hall <
> 00000876364530cf-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> > Thanks for the early citation, Jonathan. DARE shows that the phrase was
> > still found, chiefly in the South, in the mid-twentieth century:
> >
> > break one’s leg v phr
> > Also break one’s toe chiefly South<
> > https://www-daredictionary-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/search?rcode=region.Sth
> > >
> > euphem
> > To become pregnant.
> >
> >   *   1908 DN<
> > https://www-daredictionary-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/bibliography?letterHeading=D#bibl_3038>
> > 3.294 eAL, wGA,<
> > https://www-daredictionary-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/search?f_0=reglabel&q_0=eAL,%20wGA>
> > Break one’s leg. . . Of a woman, to become with child illegitimately.
> >   *   1965–70 DARE<
> > https://www-daredictionary-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/bibliography?letterHeading=D#bibl_11064
> > >
> > Qu. AA28, . . Expressions . . to say [a woman] is going to have a baby:
> > “She[’s] _____.”
> > Infs FL51, LA6, NJ69, NC88, VA41, Broke her leg; AL50, Broke a leg; AL56,
> > Got a leg broke; CA114, GA70, MS60, WV4, 5, Broke her toe.
> >
> >   *   1979 DARE File<
> > https://www-daredictionary-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/bibliography?letterHeading=D#bibl_11067>
> > cSC,<
> > https://www-daredictionary-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/search?f_0=reglabel&q_0=cSC>
> > There used to be the expression . . meaning pregnant. Mrs. Brown’s daughter
> > broke her leg.
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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a

Andy Bach,
afbach at gmail.com
608 658-1890 cell
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org