Author:
Dmitri
[ Edit | View ]
|
Date Posted: 09:21:13 08/10/10 Tue
>A quick web search comes up with Edgar Rice Burroughs
>"Beasts of Tarzan" (1914). That contains ...
>
>"He is unguarded now," continued the Russian. "Those
>who took him feel perfectly safe from detection, and
>with the exception of a couple of members of the crew,
>whom I have furnished with enough gin to silence them
>effectually for hours, there is none aboard the
>Kincaid. We can go aboard, get the child, and return
>without the slightest fear."
>
>Tarzan nodded.
>
>"Let's be about it, then," he said.
ERB was from Chicago, though also lived other places during his writing career. I lived in the Chicago area for 20 years (1961-1980), and I don't remember hearing anyone else there use that phrasing, though it is a real melting pot of ethnic humanity. Tarzan was supposedly English (Brit) extraction, though raised by African great apes (chimps). He would definitely not have gotten it from them. Maybe from the English after learning of his ancestry and getting "home" for a visit or two?
Dmitri
|
