The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #49299 Message #3936186
Posted By: Jim Dixon
08-Jul-18 - 11:42 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: There Ain't No Flies on Auntie
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: There Ain't No Flies on Auntie
From Americanisms—Old & New edited by John Stephen Farmer (London: Thomas Poulter & Sons, 1889), page 246:
Flies.—I've no flies on me, or There ain't no flies on him, are slang phrases which, like most expressions of the kind, convey an insinuated rather than a direct meaning. There ain't no flies on him, signifies that he is a man of quick parts; one not quiet long enough for moss to grow on his heels; one who is wide awake, and knows a thing without its being kicked into him by a mule.
Adam and Ebe was turned outen dar property on account ob dar sinfulness ob eaten ob de forbidden fruit, so we am tole in holy writ, but hit's de 'pinyon ob yer belubbed pasture, who reads de papers and ain't got no flies on him, dat dey would hab been turned out, anyhow. Jay Goul', or som' udder mernopolis, would hab come aroun' and claimed de groun' some time; and dey would hab got hit, too.—Texas Siftings, August, 1888.
Persons who are capable of descending to New York and Boston English are fully justified in saying that there are no flies on St. Louis or the St. Louis delegation either.—Missouri Republican, February 24, 1888.
—Sometimes the expression is more vulgarly put as "no fleas."