"puss" in Icelandic ? Swedish ?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Actually, the Marines landed in Iceland in 1941 to keep Hitler from grabbing it.  How much they influenced the language I don't know.

As I mentioned once before, 60-odd years no longer seems to me like a linguistic eon.

JL

"Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson"
Subject: Re: "puss" in Icelandic ? Swedish ?
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>If Modern Ice. "pussa" is from English, one would expect it to be regarded
>as "slang" or "vulgar," or whatever. Is it?

I would expect this either way, but I don't know for sure. Maybe the next
time I get over to the big library I can check.

>Moreover, the only *likely* English-Icelandic vectors would be anglophone
>tourists, making it a very recent import.

There has been a significant US military presence in Iceland for over 50
years, I think. I don't know how many US-ans are stationed there but I
reckon it must be more than 1% of the entire Iceland population.

-- Doug Wilson


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