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Well no, he's not black. Though in our house we say "isn't that the pot calling the pot pot," but only to be funny and not political.
Anyway I found this through Google, funnily enough...
"It seems pretty certain that [heebie-jeebies] was invented about 1923 by the American cartoonist Billy De Beck. Its first appearance was in one of his Barney Google cartoons in the New York American on 26 October 1923, though there it was spelled heeby-jeeby. Where it came from, apart from his fevered imagination, is open to question. There was a dance at about the same time, and a song in 1926, both said to have originated from Native American witch-doctor chants before human sacrifices. But the dance and the song both seem to be later than the first appearance of the phrase. Mr De Beck, by the way, is also known for other bits of now obsolescent or obsolete slang, such as hotsy-totsy and horsefeathers. But heebie-jeebies has survived to become part of the standard language."
How lovely when perfectly good words are liberated... |
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