Oh, well. A day at the library, and I withdraw my suggestion that is might be English in origin.
tom, as usual, nails it. It is racist in origin, but it does mean what starfish said-“thanks for nothing.”
And, to clear up the Mark Twain usage, he(Twain) uses a phrase in Sketches New and Old, published in 1865. Supposedly, a correspondent from California sent him a poem in which he refers to a preacher thusly-“The parson was among the whitest men I ever see”. If you read the poem, the context is that he was a straight-up, square-dealing type of guy. Not like those of a different color.
I grew up listening to thousands of hours of old radio shows( e.g. Allens Alley, Suspense, Lights Out , Jack Benny, Edger Bergen and Charlie McCarthy,Amos and Andy,The Shadow, Little Orphan Annie, Fibber Magee and Molly,The Lone Ranger,The Goldbergs,Gangbusters and so on) and I cannot recall having heard a comment like this. On what show(s) did you hear it? I know that broadly drawn racial (or racist) caricature were the norm, but I would be intrested to know the specific show.
thanks
[QUOTE=;829515]
In the book and movie The Eiger Sanction a very racist character says this to Clint Eastwood’s character, who is seeing a black woman at the time.
Clint decks him.
[/QUOTE]
And interestingly enough, Clint uses it (or rather Dirty Harry does) in The Enforcer.
