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

[Matthew Duncan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0TeDIxj04o




________________________________
From: DAVID BURNHAM <burnhamd at rogers.com>
To: 78-L at 78online.com
Sent: Thu, 3 June, 2010 23:41:13
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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