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Chris -- 2018-04-11
It seems to me that the written examples of these phrases are quite recent. It also strikes me that if this is an old saying, over 100 years old, that it’s quite possible that donkeys outlived humans.
http://www.tesarta.com/www/resources/li … spans.html
Anyone have any ideas on this one?
A ) From the Urban Dictionary:
donkey’s ears
1. This is an example of an expression that has altered its spelling over time. “Not for donkey’s ears” means not for a very long time and refers to the length of a donkey’s ears. However, they gradually stretched from the “donkey” and turned “ears” into “years”. The meaning of the expression is the same, if it does make rather less sense than the original.
2. Because donkeys tend to plod along slowly, they take a long time to complete a task or journey. Therefore, a donkey year takes a long time to elapse.
I haven’t heard that one for donkey’s ears.
Donkeys Ears
It took me years to figure out what my Irish friends meant when they said “donkey’s years” to questions about time involved in things. I didn’t see the conneciton between “donkey’s years” and time spent. Red Mum blogged about the term and things made more sense.
From World Wide Words:
[Q] Is there a story behind the phrase donkey’s years?
[A] It’s a pun on donkey’s ears, they being long. The phrase, meaning a long time, is chiefly in British use, though known in the USA and elsewhere, and was first recorded in 1916 as donkey’s ears (which is why we’re sure about the punning origin). Within ten years or so it is recorded in the modern form. The idea was supported by the belief that donkeys did in fact live a very long time.
Donkey’s years
Meaning
A very long time.
Origin
A query at the Phrases and Sayings Discussion Forum, asked if the phrase was “donkey’s years” or “donkey’s ears”. My first thoughts were, “donkey’s years of course – donkey’s ears is just muddling of imagery from Midsummer Might’s Dream”.
It turns out that I was being rather hasty. “Donkey’s years” is the correct form when meaning “a long time”, but “donkey’s ears” has also been a jokey pronunciation of that for some time – certainly to the early 20th century, viz E. V. Lucas’ Vermilion Box, 1916:
“Now for my first bath for what the men call ‘Donkey’s ears’, meaning years and years.”
In fact, this pre-dates the earliest printed version of “donkey’s years”, from the Bridgeport Telegram, 1923:
“With a heavy make-up, you’ll be the cutest vamp I’ve seen in donkey’s years.”
There’s nothing to relate “ears” with the passage of time though and it seems that the “years” version came first.
“Donkey’s years” is also the source of the use of the single word “donkeys”, meaning the same thing. Somewhat like rhyming slang, although not quite that, as doesn’t really make sense to call “years” a rhyme for “years”.
Last edited by lboy (2007-03-19 01:38:37)
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Maybe the original expression was ‘donkey’s ears’ and it really was rhyming slang, but later the rhyme-target (‘years’) slipped back in because the pronunciation was so close, the rhyming phrase wasn’t quite as robust an idiomatic unit as (e.g.) ‘loaf of bread’ and ‘trouble and strife,’ and the vague sense of donkeys as long-lived sort of made sense. That the second word is sometimes dropped in classic rhyming-slang fashion supports this supposition. The fact that there is a punning metaphorical appropriateness based on the length of donkeys’ earsis also in keeping with lots of rhyming slang. In fact the 1916 reference you cite sounds like someone elucidating exactly such a piece of slang. Is there any real reason to think that ‘donkey’s years’ is the older expression?
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Perhaps related: “candy to the year” for “candy to the ear”:
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