This news item: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Feces-Flinging-Defendant-Gives-New-Meaning-to-Jury-Duty.html , reminded me of a word and phrase, I heard in southwest Missouri in the early to mid 1960's. The OED has "blivit" or "blivet" and its first occurrence as, "1967 WENTWORTH & FLEXNER Dict. Amer. Slang Suppl. 673/2 Blivit, n., anything unnecessary, confused, or annoying. Lit. defined as ‘10 pounds of shit in a 5-pound bag’. Orig. W.W. II Army use." My dad was in the Army during WWII, but, contrary to the OED it was pronounced with a silent 't', BLiV - ee .
The phrase was "a modified A-1 blivet" which was a sack of shit with a hole in it for slinging around and spreading. Growing up with dairy cattle, I always envisioned a 100-lb burlap bag which often had mouse holes or larger.
Anyone else heard of these?
Emmett
Oh, my. I hadn't heard that news story.
I think we discussed "blivit" a long time ago on the show. As I recall, there were earlier references to a "blivit" being an excrement-filled bag that military pilots would dispose of by dropping out of the window of the aircraft.
Since the posts do not lend themselves to good prounciation descriptions (for instance, there is no schwa), I tried to upload a file of me saying, “blivet” and “modified A-1 blivet”.
It was not successful.
Emmett