>.I don't know him from a hole in the wall
This may well be a takeoff on the phrase: Didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground." Years ago I ran across a humorous book of puns, each one a shaggy dog story built around the phrase I quoted. One of them was about the novice yachtsman who went aground and drowned after making a navigation mistake off Nantucket. His final ship's log entry read "Didn't know Mass. from a shoal in the sound." Another one was about the illiterate former slave who was sent to retrieve by stealth the body of his former master, a collateral descendant of George Washington, who had died in a Union POW camp. He brought back by mistake the body of a man named Washinsky, leading him to lament "Didn't know massa from a pole in the ground."
I guess you get the picture. I was raised in a demented household, which explains my tendency to nefandity (with apologies to tsuwm if nefandity isn't a real word: it should be.)
