Who says ''Merkins''?

[Tom Zurinskas]

LBJ’s Speech can be heard at this site below.
I don’t here “merkins” for Americans.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/lbjvietman.htm

Some interesting pronunciations (~ means in truespel notation)
“good”  - sounds more like ~gud (~u= short u “uh”)
“Americans” – Ummairikinz  (~u=uh, ~mm=start stressed syllable, ~air=”air”,
~i=short i, “it”,
The letter “s” often has an “sh” sound.
“speak” sounds like ~spik
“questions” ends in ~chinz
“million” ends in ~yin
“American” again is ~ummairikin, not “merkin”
“talks, offer”  these vowels are “awe” ~au not “ah” ~aa
“promptly”  no ~t
“discussions”  ends in ~shinz
“restraint”  ~ree, not ~ri…
“denounced”  ~di,  not ~dee
“preparations”  ends in ~shinz
“during”  ~dyereeng  (~er as in “her”)
“assault”  “awe”  ~au
“elected”  starts with ~e (short e)

I stopped after a minute or so.  I find that “Americans” is not said as
~merkinz for two samples above.  Of interest to me is that the ending of
“ion” or “tion” is as in “in” (short i) not “un” (short u).  This is common
in m-w.com and agrees with my choice for respelling -ion for truespel.

Tom Z

USA CT20, TN3, NJ32, FL4+
See truespel.com and the 4 truespel books at authorhouse.com.


>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: Who says ''Merkins''?
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Yes, that was every language geek's favorite joke back in the LBJ era--even
>among us Texans who might not even have noticed the presidential
>pronunciation had we not known about merkins!
>
>The pubic wigs were (apparently) much in demand among ladies of fashion in
>the 17th century--perhaps to disguise the baldness that can result from
>syphilis.  And to think: now our female students (and some males)
>deliberately denude themselves of the very hairs that their forebears took
>such pains to replace . . . .
>
>--Charlie
>_________________________________________
>
>---- Original message ----
> >Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 09:14:40 EDT
> >From: RonButters at AOL.COM
> >Subject: Who says ''Merkins''?
> >
> >It was a commonplace joke during the earlier years of the Viet Nam War
>that the president of the United States addressed the country as "My fellow
>Merkins." He was from Texas. Our dicitonaries told us that MERKIN means
>'artifical pubic hair'.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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