"[Fink's Brag]"
in: Mike Fink, King of Mississippi Keelboatmen.
Ed. Walter Blair and Franklin J. Meine. New York: Henry Holt, 1933: 135-136.
(cit. B.A. Botkin, The American People: Stories, Legends, Tales, Traditions and Songs.
London: Pilot, 1946: 50.):
[...] I can out-run, out-jump,
out-shoot, out-brag, , an' out-fight, rough-an'-tumble,
no holts barred, any man on both sides the river from Pittsburgh to New Orleans an' back ag'in to St. Louiee. [...]
Coover's Uncle Sam not only takes up Fink's 'out-'verbs, but also his sentence structure (X can out-Y any Z).
'Out-lick' might have been suggested by the preceding sentence, in which Fink claims: "I can hit like fourth-proof lightnin'
an' every lick I make in the woods lets in an acre o'sunshine." (Ibid.)
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