[PW] son of deacon calf

[John P. Dyson]

Quoting UmbraScit at aol.com:

>
> Thanks to all who sent the illuminating instances and definitions of "deacon
> calf."   There's still one component I need: why "deacon" instead of priest,
> rabbii, imam, whatever?


Mike,

Most American dialect dictionaries point out that in New England 
deacons were the butt of everything from good-natured ribbing to 
outright disdain in local speech. That the verb "to deacon" seems to 
have originated in Maine and Connecticut bears this out. The term's 
range of meanings goes from falsifying the appearance of a container of 
fruit to putting a stop to life itself. Metaphorically, one can deacon 
a project, killing it before it gets off the ground. In its broader 
adjectival use, the word seems to have lost its regional connotation of 
deception or doom except in the sense that a male calf in a dairy herd 
is as useful as tap shoes in a mortuary. He is destined to be veal or a 
feeder calf. I bought and fed many of those deacons myself in a 
previous life.

John Dyson