In 1993, President Clinton was giving a news conference when someone mentioned that a certain Air Force official had criticized him. “How could he say that about me?” Clinton responded. “He doesn’t know me from Adam’s off ox.”
Most of the journalists at that news conference had no idea what Clinton was talking about. It turns out the president was using a regional expression that meant the official didn’t know him at all — or didn’t know him from Adam.
“Adam’s off ox” is one of the phrases included in the Dictionary of American Regional English, Volume I: Introduction and A-C , part one of a multivolume effort to capture regional expressions.
Dictionary
Dictionary of American Regional English, Volume I: Introduction and A-C
Dictionary of American Regional English: Volume 2: D-H
Dictionary of American Regional English, Volume III, I-O
Dictionary of American Regional English, Volume IV, P-Sk
Off ox
Off ox? Why on earth would Clinton use slang like that? He was a weird one.
How to build a shed
Off Ox
Who knows, there are many difficult child slang that is used in school. Teacher’s don’t even know what half of it all means.
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difficult child