Language Itself Well Documented

Donkey's years

"A very long time."

This one is a pun stacked on a pun. It plays on "donkey's ears," which are famously long, and relies on the fact that in British non-rhotic pronunciation "ears" and "years" sound close enough to swap. It's reinforced by the folk belief that donkeys are unusually long-lived animals. The wordplay is recorded in print from the 1910s, and the spelling shifted from "ears" to "years" early on, cementing the pun as the phrase's permanent form.

Sources: Earliest citations from the 1910s-20s, cited in the Oxford English Dictionary's entry for 'donkey, n.'

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