comic 1860s pronunciation?

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Jan 19, 2010, at 8:26 AM, Mark Mandel wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 10:44 PM, Arnold Zwicky
> <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
>
>> On Jan 18, 2010, at 7:24 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>>
>>> ... I was under impression that "ossifer"
>>> and similar expressions were quite common in jokes in the 1970s and
>>> 80s.
>>
>> and back to the to early 1900s, with George Herriman's wonderful
>> Krazy
>> Kat comics, in which Offisa Pup played a central role.

[MAM] But "Offisa Pup" is just a spelling pronunciation, without the
metathesis of
"oSSiFer" and "aMiNal".

just so. i suspect that you could find jocular "ossifer" back some
ways, and i meant to suggest that. but i got bogged down in searching
for examples and neglected to say it.

arnold

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