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alligator
Up to (one's) neck in alligators
business adage The full expression is some variation of: "When you are up to your neck in alligators, it's easy to forget that the goal was to drain the swamp." It is easy to be so overcome or preoccupied by various tangential worries, problems, or tasks that one loses sight of the ultimate goal or objective. I've spent so much time dealing with various infrastructure problems for my new business that I've had no time to actually develop our product properly. I guess it's easy to forget, when up to your neck in alligators, that the mission is to drain the swamp.
See you later, alligator,
and Later, alligator.Inf. Good-bye. (Sometimes the reply is After while(, crocodile.)) Bob: See you later, alligator. Jane: After while, crocodile. Bob: Bye, Tom. Tom: See you later, alligator. Bob: Later.
alligator
and gator n. a long, heavy, black segment of the outside of a tire, usually a truck tire, found on the highway. We dodged off onto the shoulder to avoid running over an alligator. A gator bashed in the bottom of my gas tank.
See you later, alligator
interj. Good-bye. (From the 1930s. Answered with After while, crocodile.) TOM: Bye. BILL: See you later, alligator. BILL: See you later, alligator. TOM: After while, crocodile.
See you later, alligator
Bye! The title of a 1950s rock-'n'-roll smash hit by Bill Haley and His Comets, the phrase was already in use, especially in the South. For a decade or more, hep/hip/with-it cats and chicks ended conversations with the phrase. The standard reply was the song's next line: “after a while, crocodile.”