Hi, Mike!  Recently you wrote in a message to ARDITH HINTON:

AH>  Yes, awhile ago I mentioned a pun which I remembered
AH>  from a British magazine... khakis = car keys.  It works
AH>  in UK & ex-Brit Canadian English.  It doesn't work in
AH>  situations where "khaki" rhymes with "tacky", however
AH>  ....  :-)

MP>  Might work in Boston also.


          Yes... and in various other places along the Atlantic seaboard,
by my reckoning.  While I've never been there myself Dallas spent some time
in Boston years ago & noticed the suppressed /r/.  The beauty of this
pun IMHO is that it seems to work regardless of who pronounces
"khaki" as if it had an /r/ in it or who pronounces
"car" as if it hadn't.  WRT New York State... see below.

          Another example which I find interesting, informative, and
amusing is one I ran across when our daughter chose to read James Fenimore
Cooper's series of novels about a character who is probably best known for
his role in THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS.  To make a long story short, if one
persists in reading all of these novels one may catch a glimpse of certain
pre-Webster American spellings. I noticed e.g. that the word
"squaw" was spelled "squar" in a particular volume
... but not in more recent editions from different publishers.  When I saw
this I thought to myself "Oh, wow... he's using British phonics!"
 To test my theory I reported my observation to a friend who grew up east
of London.  She couldn't understand what I was so excited about because
she'd spell it "squar" too.  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+