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From: lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross)
Subject: Shirttail (was Re: productive in-laws & colloquial crocodiles)
Message-ID: <Dzt7sI.1IL@scn.org>
Sender: news@scn.org
Reply-To: lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross)
Organization: Seattle Community Network
References: <54n29e$r4@frysja.sn.no> <DzrCKK.M5C@scn.org>
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 02:19:29 GMT
Lines: 46


In a previous article, adh@cx.dnv.no (Arne D Halvorsen) says:

>lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross) wrote:
>
>>Two queries: I.  re: productivity of "-in-law"
>(snip)
>
>>I. How productive (or how fossilized is the English kinship suffix "-in-law"?
>(snip)
>>shirttail-cousin-in-law?
>>shirttail in-laws? (meaning...  ?)
>
>Could I ask you: whats a shirttail cousin (or shirttail only, in this
>context)?
>
>Ive never seen the expression before, and although English isnt my
>native language,  Ive been exposed to the language through reading
>and through living in Britain.
>

Merriam Webster's _Third International Dictionary_ (1971 ed.) gives:

	2/ shirttail *adj* ... 2: distantly and indefinitely related
		<he was a sort of shirttail relative but we weren't
		friends -- G. C. Robinson>

I note its absence from the AHD (in this sense) and the Shorter OED (don't
have a full OEDat my immediate disposal).  Wentworth and Flexner's 1960
_Dictionary of American Slang_ has: 

	shirttail kin	A distant relative, as a fourth cousin. *Mostly
		dial. use in Southern and Midwestern rural areas.*

I don't think of it (shirttail) as dialectal (though it wouldn't surprise 
me to learn it was an Americanism).  My own dialect is not particularly 
Southern or Midwestern or rural.  I and both my parents were born in 
Washington State; they both had master's degrees and I went to Yale.  And 
I definitely have "shirttail" (usually followed by "cousin") as part of 
my active vocabulary, essentially as defined by MW.  

--
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