Bugs

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"Don't that beat the bugs a bitin'" is a term I have used all my life
to mean something similar to "well I'll be diddly doggoned", or it
don't seem hardly possible". I assumed that I had heard it at my
mother's knee, or maybe elbow and that she had heard it in her southern
Ohio town near Kentucky. I imagined it to be a common folksy saying in
those parts. I asked her about it when she was very old. I was shocked
to find that she had never heard the phrase. Before entering this post
I thought I had better check the web to see if such a phrase exists.
The only thing I found was a post I had made four years ago and had
forgotten about, asking if anyone had heard it before. No one had, but
it was suggested that it was part of a very large body of similar
phrases starting with "don't that beat...). I have seen it linked to
Li'l Abner. From a Google search: "Don't that beat the bugs
a-fightin'?", an article by Wilbur W. (Bill) Mayhew,UCR Professor
Emeritus of Biology. Doesn't quite have the same flavor.
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