auto/Otto

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 12:15 PM 12/13/2006, you wrote:
>At 11:06 AM -0500 12/13/06, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
>>. . .
>>But anyway, another nice merger example was said by (the other) Dennis the
>>Menace some years ago:  Dennis was looking at some reindeer on a Xmas
>>display and asked, "Which one is Olive the other reindeer?"  Most of my
>>students, mergers and non-mergers alike, don't get this joke either.  Ditto
>>for a similar cartoon on picking out a "naughty pine" Xmas tree.  'Tis the
>>season.
>>
>>Beverly
>
>Not just a Dennis the Menace cartoon, but a bonified (yup) artistic
>endeavor, originating as a book published 10 years ago and Christmas
>TV special a couple of years after that and now available in VHS and
>DVD at a video store near you.
>See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive,_the_Other_Reindeer for details.
>
>LH

I didn't know that!  Maybe the Dennis cartoonist was playing on the movie?
But is "Olive the other reindeer" really a mondegreen?  Would
dialectologists agree??

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