The turkey

Posted by E. on November 30, 1999

In Reply to: The turkey that swallowed the sparkplug posted by Chester on November 27, 1999

: Recently I read a sentence offering a colorful image (aural image): "He was giggling like the turkey that swallowed a sparkplug."

: Now, is it an expression with some currency? Is it an original invention of the writer? Is it a genre of corn-ball writing? -- some vein of folksy phrasing?

: If it's a genre, does anyone know where phrases of this sort may have been collected -- a book I mean?

Do you mean like: "Grinning like a possum eating persimmons (or yellow jackets)...a mule eating prickly pear cactus...a small dog with a big bone. Or maybe, grinning like a dog eating briars? The first of those came from This Dog'll Really Hunt: An Entertaining Texas Dictionary by Wallace O. Chariton. The genre is Southern, colorful not corn-ball. There are several good southern expression books available.