macaronic wordplay

[Mark Mandel]

Heard on the weekend on, I think, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me", after
something about a Harvard basketball team, from Amy Dickinson:

"As it were -- that's their motto."

And I went
   tick... tick... BOOM!
as (to mix metaphors) the penny dropped:

1. Harvard's motto, "Veritas", in the classical pronunciation: /'wEritas/
2. Split and reverse order: "as it were"

Mark Mandel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org