antedating banjo (UNCLASSIFIED)

Cohen, Gerald Leonard gcohen at MST.EDU
Thu Apr 26 20:38:36 UTC 2012


________________________________

 Wilson Gray, Wed 4/25/2012 11:40 PM, wrote:

<snip> When I started high school, two problems struck me: 1) <snip>; 2) how to keep a straight face while being bombarded with laugh-inducing noises that I now know were nothing more than ordinary, European-American, ethnic surnames.
<snip>
--
-Wilson

That reminds me of a joke, ca. 1961, at a time of  turmoil in the former Belgian
Congo when the news reports were filled with mentions of Lumumba, Mobutu, and Kasavubu.
The joke went:
"Lumumba, Mobutu, and Kasavubu were sitting around having a conversation.  Mobutu turned
to Kasavubu and said: 'Isn't Kennedy a funny name?'"

Gerald Cohen

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



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