Juan Crow, et al.

[Wilson Gray]

I wouldn't be surprised to find that wll-known B-movie bimbo and
sitcom-actress Jaime, i.e. Jamie, Pressley has probably ruined any
consciousness among the hoi polloi (I once came across "_the_ polloi";
maybe the writer, holder of a PhD and a DD, was merely being in-joky)
of _Jaime_ as having to do with anything Hispanic.

I knew a guy named "Pressley" in the Army. I sometimes wonder whether
she might not be his granddaughter.

Otherwise, the spelling -ss- reaffirms my belief and solidifies my
memory that the original universal pronunciation of Elvis's surname in
the '50's was only "Pre[s]ley" and never the later "Pre[z]ley."

-Wilson

On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 11:20 AM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Juan Crow, et al.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On the TV news last night, about street demonstrations in Arizona, I noticed a protester's sign that denounced the "Juan Crow" law.
>
> Why, I wondered, not "Jaime Crow"?  Or "Jaime Cuervo"?
>
> Perhaps because the monosyllabaic character of the names "Juan Crow" more effectively echoes "Jim Crow"?  Or because Anglos might more easily recognize "Juan" as a stereotypical Hispanic name than "Jaime"--and fail to comprehend that "cuervo" is Spanish for 'crow'?
>
> Raw Google figures (recognizing that, in each case, the name belongs to some real persons):
>
> Juan Crow--18,000
> Jaime Crow--5,000
> Jaime Cuervo--7,000
>
> Not much there, really!
>
> --Charlie
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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