[78-L] Plant you now, dig you later

[David Lennick]

Why Mr. Burnham!  Actually I never gave that phrase a second thought since I used to hear it in jive talk, where it probably means the speaker is unable to continue the relationship at present but will be glad to resume it after a brief interval. And I do have that album on 78s, LP and a CD which calls it "My Pal Joey" on the spine.

 

Speaking of "things they got away with", there's a (ghastly) comic strip in the Toronto Star called W. T. Duck. And more than half a century ago there was a comic book I used to enjoy called "Super Duck"..no unearthly powers, just a kind of Donald Duck knockoff, but Supe's girlfriend also had the surname "Duck". And her first name was "Uwanna".

 

dl


 
> Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2010 15:41:13 -0700
> From: burnhamd at rogers.com
> To: 78-L at 78online.com
> Subject: [78-L] Plant you now, dig you later
> 
> I was just listening to the Columbia recording of Pal Joey, (it must be on 78s but I've never seen it;  I had it on Lp and now it's on CD), and I noticed the song "Plant you now, dig you later".  This seems like a strange title and I don't know what it means.  I've heard somewhere that it's an old African-American phrase.  Anyway, why it caught my ear is that I have here somewhere an old 18th century dictionary which contains words which were dropped in later dictionaries.  One of those words is the popular 4 letter "f" word which means to copulate.  In this old dictionary its meaning is given as "to plant".  It also gives the version "f**ken" which means planted.  Perhaps Mr. Hart knew this and was having a private chuckle at getting away with it.
> 
> A similar situation happens in one of the squeaky clean Mary Tyler Moore episodes.  She and Rhoda are, as usual, discussing some guy and Mary grumbles that she'll probably spend her later years at home "tickling her cat".  Rhoda bursts into a spontaneous laughter which clearly indicates that this was an unexpected ad-lib line.  The phrase is actually a not to well known euphemism for I'm sure you can guess what.
> 
> db
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