feets don't fail me now
Marius Hancu
"feets don't fail me now"
seems quite frequent.
Is this dialect?
----
Thanks.
Marius Hancu
Don Phillipson
news:231f78bd-8ada-4f40...@n3g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
> "feets don't fail me now"
> seems quite frequent.
>
> Is this dialect?
This is a traditional American phrase, attributed to a (negro?) athlete
(running bases during a baseball game?)
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
CDB
> Hello:
>
> "feets don't fail me now"
> seems quite frequent.
>
> Is this dialect?
> ----
in one of the Charlie Chan series), some danger would appear and the
Comic Negro would roll his eyes, and run away or fall down.
>
The line is from a Bob Hope movie, according to someone.
>
http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question78477.html
tony cooper
<marius...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Hello:
>
>"feets don't fail me now"
>seems quite frequent.
>
>Is this dialect?
Yes, but exaggerated AAVE. While it's become a familiar joke, I doubt
if any African American would ever use the expression without it being
intended as a joke.
The expression got legs when it was a line by the African American
actor Willie Best in the 1940 movie "The Ghost Breakers".
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
tony cooper
<e9...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca> wrote:
>"Marius Hancu" <marius...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>news:231f78bd-8ada-4f40...@n3g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
>
>> "feets don't fail me now"
>> seems quite frequent.
>>
>> Is this dialect?
>
>This is a traditional American phrase, attributed to a (negro?) athlete
>(running bases during a baseball game?)
I've never heard/seen that. I would attribute it to a black person
reacting in fear and planning to run away. A stage black person, that
is.
Marius Hancu
> >"feets don't fail me now"
> >seems quite frequent.
>
> >Is this dialect?
>
> Yes, but exaggerated AAVE. While it's become a familiar joke, I doubt
> if any African American would ever use the expression without it being
> intended as a joke.
>
> The expression got legs when it was a line by the African American
> actor Willie Best in the 1940 movie "The Ghost Breakers".
Thank you all.
Marius Hancu
contrex
> The expression got legs when it was a line by the African American
> actor Willie Best in the 1940 movie "The Ghost Breakers".
It learned to sing possibly way before the 1974 "Feats don't Fail Me
Now" album by Little Feat.
Skitt
> tony cooper wrote:
>> The expression got legs when it was a line by the African American
>> actor Willie Best in the 1940 movie "The Ghost Breakers".
>
> It learned to sing possibly way before the 1974 "Feats don't Fail Me
> Now" album by Little Feat.
Addressing the issue, and what's printed on the albums notwithstanding,
there's a comma missing in the title.
Oh, and with the Feets spelling, it is also an album by Herbie Hancock.
--
Skitt
Seen it all, done it all,
Can't remember most of it.
Prai Jei
continuum:
> The expression got legs
<groan>
--
ξ:) Proud to be curly
Interchange the alphabetic letter groups to reply
Mike Lyle
Straying somewhat, the only one of Lillian Beckwith's charming or
irritating books of life in the Scottish Isles that I've ever read had a
Gaelic-speaker saying "teeths". "Th" is one of the English sounds
Gaelic-speakers have seemed to find hard to utter, so I suppose "teeths"
is progress.
--
Mike.
Jonathan Morton
news:i60p9t$6ge$1...@news.albasani.net...
> "contrex" wrote:
>> tony cooper wrote:
>
>>> The expression got legs when it was a line by the African American
>>> actor Willie Best in the 1940 movie "The Ghost Breakers".
>>
>> It learned to sing possibly way before the 1974 "Feats don't Fail Me
>> Now" album by Little Feat.
>
> Addressing the issue, and what's printed on the albums notwithstanding,
> there's a comma missing in the title.
Which I think answers my question. I don't know the expression, and when I
saw this thread I wasn't sure if it was:
"Feet, [please] don't fail me now"
or...
"I started using 'Just for Feet' three months ago. Feet don't fail me now".
Regards
Jonathan
Eric Walker
> Marius Hancu wrote:
>> Hello:
>>
>> "feets don't fail me now"
>> seems quite frequent.
>>
>> Is this dialect?
>> ----
> Yes, Stage Black dialect. In pre-WWII movies (I think I remember it in
> one of the Charlie Chan series), some danger would appear and the Comic
> Negro would roll his eyes, and run away or fall down.
I think that was Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, though Wikipedia is
unhelpful, and is how I, too, remember it originating.
> The line is from a Bob Hope movie, according to someone.
>>
> http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question78477.html
I have doubts.
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker, Owlcroft House
http://owlcroft.com/english/
Jerry Friedman
<jonathan.mortonbutignorethisp...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> "Skitt" <skit...@comcast.net> wrote in message
Definitely a vocative. (And "feets".)
--
Jerry Friedman
R H Draney
>
>On Sun, 05 Sep 2010 10:02:19 -0400, CDB wrote:
>
>> Marius Hancu wrote:
>>> Hello:
>>>
>>> "feets don't fail me now"
>>> seems quite frequent.
>>>
>>> Is this dialect?
>>> ----
>> Yes, Stage Black dialect. In pre-WWII movies (I think I remember it in
>> one of the Charlie Chan series), some danger would appear and the Comic
>> Negro would roll his eyes, and run away or fall down.
>
>I think that was Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, though Wikipedia is
>unhelpful, and is how I, too, remember it originating.
>
>
>> The line is from a Bob Hope movie, according to someone.
>>>
>> http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question78477.html
>
>I have doubts.
Before other names were brought into the thread, I would have assumed that the
actor in question was either Stepin Fetchit (Lincoln Perry) or Mantan
Moreland...from the partial filmography in Moreland's Wiki entry (he was a
regular in the Charlie Chan series and many of the titles suggest "haunted
house" shenanigans), he's now my prime candidate for making the line famous....r
--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.
Dr Peter Young
Straying even further, when I was a trainee back in 1968, one of my
colleagues was an Iraqi who had trained in Moscow. His English was
pretty good, but he also couldn't pronounce "th". He was enquiring
about a female patient's dentition, and she was a bit alarmed to hear
him say, "You have false teats?"
Peter.
--
Peter Young, (BrE, RP), Consultant Anaesthetist, 1975-2004.
(US equivalent: Certified Anesthesiologist)
Cheltenham and Gloucester, UK. Now happily retired.
http://pnyoung.orpheusweb.co.uk
Eric Walker
Having looked at the images, I am pretty sure you are correct about its
being Moreland. I was off because there is--to my eye--a definite
resemblance between the two:
http://ahoteltothestars.com/store/images/45%20Mantan%20Moreland.jpg
http://www.movieactors.com/photos-stars/eddie-rochester-anderson-
topperreturns-1.jpg
tony cooper
I'm sticking with Willie Best in "Ghost Breakers".
http://www.findadeath.com/Deceased/b/WillieBest/WillieBest.htm
R H Draney
I've just downloaded a copy of "Ghost Breakers" and will watch it this evening,
paying special attention to whether Mr Best ever directly addresses his
feets....r
Horace LaBadie
For whatever it's worth, Remington Steele, who had an encyclopedic
knowledge of movies, attributed the phrase to Birmingham Brown (Mantan
Moreland) in "Shanghai Cobra." ("Dancer, Prancer, Donner and Steele.")
R H Draney
Now downloading "Shanghai Cobra" to check...the line isn't listed in IMDb's
"memorable quotes" for the film....r
tsuidf
> Hello:
>
> "feets don't fail me now"
> seems quite frequent.
>
> Is this dialect?
I'm always reminded of this phrase whenever I see signs and such like
referring to bicycles around here, as they are (in NL) 'fiets'. I am
inordinately amused by this -- but if you get a chortle on your daily
commute, why fight it?
best from Brussels,
Stephanie